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Show Teutonic Duplicity J j ' Astonishment has been expressed by the American press ni ' by public men and students ol psychology over the unspeakable i acts of cruelty committed throughout the war by Prussian soldiers generally, from those highest in command to the men in the ranks. It has been inconceivable to many that a pebple so far ad-i; ad-i; vanced irsTl the arts, professions and trades, iid seemingly devout j believers in a religion which teaches peace, love and kindness, ! ' suddenly should be transformed inrr the must cruel barbarians. . It must be remembered that throughout their history the 'J Germans have been known as a military people. Not only this, ,! but they acquired an unenviable reputation for duplicity in all their dealings, both in peace and war. '. Afrnrding to history. Julius Caesar, fifty years before the ' birth of Christ, spoke of the Germans as "that treacherous race which is bred up from the cradle for war and rapine" and who ' "practice the base deception which first asks for peace and then j openly begins war." However well known was the unsavory ' reputation of the! German people in years gone by, it was generally felt that under the refining influences of civilization they had undergone a change for the better. The discovery that this was not the fact was the greatest of all disappointments to mankind oWhe present day. Theie Is giwund' for the belief, however, that the German people, as a whole, had1 advanced in thought to an extent practically equal to that of recognized enlightened nations up to the time the present kaiser became their ruler. Doubtless this event' marked the beginning of the retrograde movement of the German people and which has resulted in creatr ing practically a new nation, with people of a mind which Is strange even to those Germans who left their native land previous to the infliction upon that country of the present sovereign. Tt is certain that all Germany has become thoroughly Prussianized Prus-sianized through a military system which' has had control of the press, the pulpit and tutelage generally, from the lowest and through the highest degree of education. A learned Swiss professor, who said that he had tone nearly : crazy trying io understand the new German mind, recently declared de-clared that "you could not conceive, unless you have studied the . GermanssI hive, that men could love for evil's sake, murder for murder's sake, steal for" the love of sfealingTlie "for "theldve f -of fyinj; in fact, do all things for the lust of evil. I know men high in Germany whose delight is the execution of their part in these evil designs upon the world. They deliberately love evil and x pursue it as an end." ' " . |