The Pulaskian., 1919-06-13
THRIFTY DUTCHMEN TURNED
INTO DESPERADOES BY WAR
Genuine Shock Has Come 10 Those Who in Old Days Admired Indus
trious HoIIander Whose Only Occupation Now Is in
Deeds of Daring and Robbery-Country Is
Now Paradise for Thieves

Tho Hague.-To those who knew
81 Hollander before the war as a
srpt well-behaved, thrifty and indus
s.,ous soul content to pursue the even
s.nor Of his way and sticking religi-
saslv TO orderliness and good behav-
- his Transformation since the sign
IT, Of the ar1nistice last November
'rill come as a genuine shock.
crime, in the pre-war days, was at
= minimum in Holland. Her stand
,ng army of some $4,000 was com
posed of young men who served their
sllotted time in the military service
b their country with the minimum of
srumbling, returning cheerfully to the
blow or the dairy, or the fisheries, as
soon as their term of army service
WAS over
Il Except for an ever watchful eye on
her frontier Holland lived a calm
Erontented existence, turning out her
|Qord-famous cheeses and her per-
Shans. more infamous gins, her citizens
spcnre in the feeling that theirs was
4 land where the law was observed
#where their chattels were safe even
#sbough their front doors remained I'M
locked and where the infrequent Of
lender against the penal code could
Enot hope to get mis- full name in the
|fapers. much less his photograph with
! pretty border around it,
Fl Today all this is changed. From a
land of safety Holland has been trans
formed into a land of danger and the
Hollander-that is, he who is repre-
kented in the ranks of the pillow boy.
Hhe driver of the horse or donkey
along the tow path, the churner of the
butter and the cream, the farm hand
4 b the miller's assistant-has been
transformed into a shiftless, lazy, dis
orderly ne'erdo-well, whose principal
occupation is burglary
81 It Is New Crime.
Il Burglary in Holland was not a usual
brine in the pre-war days. That fact
makes the present wave of lawless-
bess all the more striking. The great
truth that has dawned upon the coun-
Elry is that the 100000 Hollanders who
have been doing military service as
#on-combatants since the beginning of
Ehe war have come to hate work and
10 hate having to provide for their
own living, after enjoying food, cloth
<|ng and shelter at government expense
Or nearly five years.
q When Holland modified her young
@nanhood, middle-aged manhood and
Eullgrown manhood during the first
$x months of the war, when there
vas momentary danger of Germany
suddenly getting it into her disordered
faln to invade and despoil the Meth
brands as we'll as Belgium, the Dutch
government provided for the support
the families of the soldiers whom
he modified as wei, as for the sup
port Of the soldiers themselves.
In her well-ordered house, Holland
oud not see 100000 families in want
Pecause 100000 male supporters were
aken for the defense of the father
Pnd She provided this support as
uDctlllously and as carefully as she
provided for the thousands of Belgian
hd French refugees, who have lived
the country's bounty from the day
The siege of Antwerp to the day
nat Marshal Foch handed his foun-
'alh pen to the German armistice COM
lssloners and said: "Sign y
with the rehabilitation that began
ufng the latter days of last Novem-
e. the discharged soldiers found it
Asome to resume their duties as fam
providers instead of letting Will