New-York tribune., 1920-02-15
By Frank II. Simonds

vt is difficult not to feel that
the latest Allied maneuver.
that expressed in the demand
upon Holland for the extradi-
ton of the former German Emperor
and upon the German Republic for
the surrender of long list Of off,
Gals of high and low degree, from
Ludendortf and Hindenburg to the
malefactors of small consequence,
guilty of plundering invading dis
tricts, is not a complete and un-
mistakable blunder.
The world, outside Of Germany
and her former allied countries,
Is convinced that the war, which
ended by the unconditional surren-
der of Germany on November IL,
1918, was Of German making. All
the evidence which has been spread
upon the record since the close Of the
fighting has served to confirm the
conviction which existed before the
new documents became available.
On the subject Of atrocities there
is no less clear evidence In any
number Of cases, the celebrated
crimes Of the Germans, the murder
Of Edith Cavell, the Lusitania mas
sacre, Louvain and it's Belgian analo-
gies, the destruction of Rheims, city
and cathedral; the execution of Cap
tain Fryatt, the deportations Of
Lille, all of these remain Just what
they were, crimes against humanity
and civilization. Nor has time done
anything to soften the judgment of
mankind as to the wrong which was
the invasion of Belgium, the viola
tion of international obligation, the
transformation of sacred treaty
obligations into Scraps Of paper"
When Germany Gave Up
But, acknowledging all of this,
there are still practical questions
to be faced. 1t was conceivable that
on the day when Germany made her
demand for an armistice, a demand
which was in fact a confession of
defeat and the expression of a
readiness to surrender, Foch, speak
ing for the Allied governments,
might have demanded in the list of
things which must be done by Ger
many to obtain an armistice that
there should be surrendered those
whose crimes were known and whose
names could be specified in the docu-
ment.
At that moment there Is small
question as to the response of Ger
many; she had no choice but to
comply To be sure, the Kaiser and
the Crown Prince, with the lesser
kings and kinglets, were in Belgium
and Switzerland; Ludendorf was in
Sweden. 1t lay in Germanys power,
granted the utmost good faith, to
deliver only certain number, even
of the prescribed still in Germany,
for in the general confusion many
Of these would have been able to
escape, aided by their compatriots.
But after the armistice had once
been signed, above all, when the
treaty Of peace had been ratified and
put into operation. then to demand
scores of Germans who must be
surrendered and turned over to an
enemy for trial, was not this too
much, granted that in the armi-
stice and in the treaty provisions
had been inserted covering ex-
actly this contingency? Was not the
evil which would flow from this de-
mand far greater than any possible
benefit, either for eternal Justice or
national and human satisfaction in
seeing criminals, some of them of
the very basest sort (for one can
have no sympathy with many of the
offenders), meet just and we'll mer-
tied punishment?
After all, the main purpose which
all the inhabitants of all the vic
torious countries must consider,
must work for, is to bring about
real restoration of peace. We
shall all of US suspect the German
for decades to come, even if, thing
wholly unlikely, he changes his char
acter in that time and turns to ideas
and methods which are in accord
with those Of the western nations
The time Is long distant when civ.
ilization can feel for the German
the same emotions that it felt be.
fore 1914, when Germany was sud
denly revealed as thing abhorrent
to all the democratic and humane
countries in the world.
Must Pay