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GERMAN WAR Edited by Dana C. Mi versity; George C. 5 of Wisconsin, and J University of Issued by the Committee IV. DEPORTATIONS AND FORCED c< LABOR. J y e Advance in Humanity?Until August o 1914. Until the present war the whole j P civilized world has boasted of'its ad- &' vance in humanity. This advance had been marked in many fields, and j P1 in none had greater progress been j ti made than in the protection to be; a; given to the private citizen in an in-! vaded country. As far back as 1863, ei in the Instructions for the Govern- d' ment of Armies of the United States w in the Field, the United States de- ai clared: jb< United States Treatment of Civilians, hi 1863. ol "22. Nevertheless, as civilization la has advanced during the last centuri-! kl ries, sohas likewise steadily advanc- j ?] ed, especially in war on land, the! distinction between the private in- i dividual belonging to a hostile coun- B try. and the hostile country itself, j ia with its men in arms. The principle has been more and more acknowleged ej that the unarmed citizen is to be j ai spared in person, property, and honor, as much as the exigencies of War ft will admit. 1 ci "23. Private citizens are no longer I st murdered, enslaved, or carried off to b< - - - ? . . distant parts, and the inoffensive in-j ? dividual is as little disturbed in his n* private relations as the commander of the hostile troops can afford to grant in the overruling demands of m a vigorous war. si "24. The almost universal rule in 0t remote times was, and continues to ^ be with barbarious armies, that the ^ private individual of the hostile k country is destined to suffer every ! i privation of liberty and protection,; and every disruption of family ties. a, Protection was, and still is with un- ta \ civilized people, the exception." r , . German Government's Reversion to fr t \ t Barbarism. m These declarations were made in : ps the midst of our Civil War?one of 8( * the world's fiercest conflicts. A half-1 at [SHI | ; % B n i, 1 n to II ma x n / pin wa do BUG" Ih on I alv n =,== PRACTICES jnro, Princeton UniJellery, University Vugust C Krey, Minnesota on Public Information sntury later, after more than 50 ears of progress, the German Govrnment has gone back to the methds used by "barbarious armies" and uncivilized people." It has delib rately adopted the policy of deorting men and women, boys and iris, and of forcing them to work >r their captors, it has even comelled them to make arms and munions for use against their allies ud their own flesh and blood. No other act of the German Govrnment has aroused such horror and etestation throughout the civilized orld. Thousands of helpless men ud women, boys and girls, have sen enslaved. Families have been oken up. Girls have been carried if to work?or worse?in a strange md, and their relatives have not j uown where they have been taken,' p what their fate has been. The system of forced labor and j sportation embraced the whole of; elgium, Poland, and the occupied' .nds of France. The plan for setting forth the ssential facts of the deportations j ad forced labor is as follows: the' ipumpiitc that is t.n saw a small! action of those which could be! ted, will be allowed to tell" the' ,ory, and only such comments will. 3 added as are needed to enable, le reader easily to grasp the con-! jction of events. BELGIUM. "The deportations' * * * were the' ost ' vivid, shocking, convincing, j n'gle happening in all our enforced >servation and experience of German isregard of human suffering and j uman rights in Belgium." Vernon j ellogg in Atlantic Monthly, October, j 917. A summary of the whole situation, | 3wn to January, 1917, can be ob-: ,ined by reading continuously the; .'port of Minister Whitlock, taken j om the files of the State Depart-j ent, which is given in italics on j iges 49-50, 54, 55-56,'69-70, 76-77, )-81. The insertion of his report apprpopriate points has made it i " 11 11 PMF ave just receive Bamberg. The* irkets, and rani tk of condition nt you to see t you good just 1 GIES, ave also receiv the market, an fays complete. '** possible to avoid all but a minimum of repetition. "Legation of the United States of America, Brussels, January 16th, 1917. The Honorable, the Secretary of State, Washington. Horrifying Behavior of the Germans in Belgium. "Sir: I have had it in mind, and I might say, on my conscience, since the Germans began to deport Bel-! gian workmen early in November, to1 prepare for the Department a detail- j ed report on this latest instance of brutality, but there have been so many obstacles in the way of obtain-; ing evidence on which a calm and judicious opinion could be based, and and one is so overwhelmed with the' horror of the thing itseu, mac 11 nas been, and even now is, difficult to 1 write calmly and justly about it. I have had to content myself with the fragmentary despatches I have from I: | time to time sent to the Department and with doing what I could, little j j as that can be, to alleviate the dis! tress that this gratuitous cruelty has j | caused the population of this unhap- i I py land. j "In order to understand fully the! situation it is necessary to go back < to the autumn of 1914. At the time we were organizing the relief work, i the Comite National?the Belgian relief organization that collaborates : with the Commission for Relief in j ESSBOOi :nt id a shipment of ie mules were pe jefrom 1,000 to , and there is n< hem, whether y< to look at them. WAG' J ed a shipment o id my stock of h My prices are BAMBERG =3E=SOO( Belgium?proposed an arrangement! by which the Belgian Government j should pay to its own employees left in Belgium, and other unemployed ; men besides, the wages they had i been accustomed to receive. The < Belgians wished to do this both for humanitarian and patriotic purposes: they wished to provide the unemployed with the means of livelihood, and, at the same time, to prevent their working for the Germans. I refused to be connected in any way with this plan, and told the Belgian committee that it had many possibilities of danger, that not only would it place - J1 1 x .*1 a premium on luieuess, uui tnac it would ultimately exasperate the Germans. However, the policy was adopted, and has been continued in practice, and on the rolls of the Comite National have been borne the j names of hundreds of thousands? some 700,000, I believe?of idle men receiving this dole, distributed ] through the communes. German Cupidity Excited. "The presence of these unemployed, however, was a constant tempta- 1 tion to German cupidity. Many times they sought to obtain the lists of the chomeueurs but were always foiled ( by the claim that under the guaran- 1 tees covering the relief work, the I records of the Comte National and 1 its various suborganizations were immune. Rather than risk any inter CARLISLE BOYJ PI II. IE OF \ the finest mule rsonally selected 1,500 pounds, ot a cheap mul hi want to buy rw n U1NS, >f the best bugg arness, whips, h always reasonal t, s. c. >E=aE=IC I ruption of the ravitaillment, for which, while loath to own any abligation to America, the Germans have always been grateful, since it has had the effect of keeping the population calm, the authorities never pressed < the point, other than with the burgo- i masters of the communes. Finally, however, the military party, always; brutal, and with an astounding ignorance of public opinion and of moral ' sentiment, determined to put these i idle men to work. "General von Bissing and the civil portion of his entourage had always been and even now are opposed to this policy and I think have sincerely done what they could, first, to prevent its adoption, and secondly, to lighten the rigors of its application." j In the early days of the German idvance into Belgium, the people had learned to fear the worst. This was particularly true in Antwerp, in order to alleviate their fears and to obtain guarantees which might hasten the restoration of settled conditions, Cardinal Mercier secured from the German governor of Antwerp promises, and in a circular j letter dated October 16th, 1914, ask-' id the clergy of the Province of Ant- j verp to communicate them to the j people: Solemn Promises of Germans Not to Exploit Belgians. "The governor of Antwerp, Baron S AT DRILL. MUI # is that ever come I in the Westerr They are in the e in the lot. 1 or not. It wil HARN ies and wagons in rnhes. etc.. is T ? 7 7 )le. % 1 von Hoiningen, General von Huene, has authorized me to inform you in his name and to communicate by your obliging intermediary to out populations the following declarations: "(1) The young men need not fear being taken to Germany, either to be enrolled into the army or to be employed at forced labors. "(2) If individual infractions of nnlire regulations are committed, the authorities will institute a search for the responsible authors and will punish them, without placing the responsibility on the entire population. * "(3) The German and Belgian authorities will neglect nothing to see that food is assured to the population." These promises w*ere not kept, as Cardinal Mercier and his colleagues show by abundant evidence in the Appeal to Truth. "On March 23rd, 1915, at the arsenal at Luttre the German authority posted a notice demanding return to work. On April 21st, 200 workmen were called for. On April 27th soldiers went to fetch the workmen from their homes and take them to the arsenal. In the absence of a workman, a member of the familywas arrested. (To be continued next week) ' V IesI . < / / % t %? i '/ p :i 1 i i i ESS | u ? / Kli[ " "e