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Show . THE WAR, THE FARM I AND THE FARMER , Dy Herbert QuJ.-fc j Mr-hsr Fee. ml Farm Lean CcnrJ i ! What the Imperial German rcvem-tnent rcvem-tnent olTeted the fa nv.rs of A-n.rica in its rut'-.lesn submarine warfare w.-s j hot the loss of profits, but slar.ry to i the faber-ratt'er of Potsdam, lie pur-: pur-: posed to make us slaves by murder-j murder-j lug the people wl:o took o;:r products j to market. By a'l the lavis of civil-ined civil-ined warfare, coiiiinerce under a neutral neu-tral flag was fiee from any Lin '.ranee except the lecul interference j istif'.c 1 ! by war. But. the Germans not only . stopped merchant vessels, they sank j them. Sauk them without warn in:;, wiiho.it trace the most devilish thing war has seep, since the sa.aies scalped our ancestors and threw screaming babies into the flames of burning cabins. The German plan of sinking merchant mer-chant vessels without trace is ba. c! on the murderer's maxim that "dead men tell no tales." It was executed exe-cuted by the massacre of men, women wom-en and children, who, having committed com-mitted themselves to small boats in the open sea after their ships were torpedoed, were mercilessly raked with gunfire, and exterminated to the last unprotected, unpitied soul! These are the murders that stain the handj of the Kaiser, his advisers and minions. min-ions. These outrages were perpetrated on neutral vessels when all that civilized civ-ilized warfare gave the Germans a right to do even with the merchant vessel under a hostile flag, was to stop it at sea and make it a prize of war. To kill the civilians on board, even tinder a hostile flag, was nothing but unmitigated murder. And these mur ders were committed in order that we might bs enslaved! Having the right to fake the sea with his fleet, hut being afraid to do so for fear he might lose it, and being unable by fiir means to stop the selling of our prod.tcts to his enemies, the Kaiser declared that he would do it by the foulest methods ever resorted to in war. He declared the sea closed, and that he would keep it closed, not by war, but by murder. To have submitted would have cost us dear in prosperity but that would have been the least of our loss. We should have had to grovel before be-fore the German government. We should have had to accept mur-(This mur-(This is the second of three articles. Tl der as a th::r; against which we co ;ld not d ad ourselves. We sh. .:?(! have allowed this new j horr-r o 'feme a part of all future wars, i'lii !-n e b n responsible for i's iuco, ; ;-.;i;oi into international ' law. i We shell;! have proved that be- ca i:e the ;.,e which burns up our f:.rms' iu,er viu-zs is beyond the hori-! hori-! zon. we wo.iij sub.nit to the kindling of it. . Wo miht hr.v-? accented the seventy sev-enty cento lor " ;.r:U and the sic ten's for cotton, b ;l we could not have done it msr bocaasu we were com:ii".mld to do it. T.y so doitr; we sho.iid have at-ccpled denudation. denuda-tion. We should have ' bosun, alter winning our i'retdom in our own revolution and establishing a union on the foundation of liberty in the biood and tears of our war between : tho states, to knuckle under to autocracy! autoc-racy! We sl.o ild have barely yielded up our bi thri':ht as Americans. Such a tho i ".'at Is intolerable. Peace ft s.ich a p.ite would not be peace, bat only a p'e.aiation for a future re clt Sir-last su.:' '"ration. Better any to:t of war; bttter war foiever, that thai. Whenever the tit-ie comes for new sacrifices, let us rr member that wo ' tight, no !c. o ir Khnies tomorrow, or next year or twenty years f ro n now, but for our fi'edom today. Not for the right o live hi tlie future, bat lor the ri;ht to make a living this year.' German oppress'on had begun pinch us before we entered the war. If we had not declared war, but hci accepted the conditions of life ordered for us by the Kai.;e , we should today be a poverty-stricken people. Our factories woild be shut down, our workmen unemployed, our people starving, our farmers ruined by the poverty of those for whose consumption consump-tion they grow their crops. There is loss and sac. ilice in the war, but there would have been far more of loss and sacrifice in accepting the German terms. We should have lost more in money than we have spent in the war, but we should have lost something, far more precious. We shoald have lost our souls. ie third to be published next week.) |
