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Show POLES BR1VEE1 TO GEBlAfTOWOSK Hun Commander's Brutal Order Issued to Conquered and Helpless People. Tvery Able-Sodied Man Forced to Lesve His Starving Family and Labor Under Shocking Conditions Condi-tions fcr the Oppressor. .M.-fr...H..M.-K MK"M"M- j; .i. This I have seen. I could not v; believe ft unless I had seen it f . , through and through. For sev- J J ersl weeks I lived with it; I T. went all .-.bout it and br.ck of H it; inside and out of it was shewn to me until finally I came to realize that the incredi- J -o ble was true. It is monstrous, it 13 unthinkable, but it exists. "T 4" It is the Prussian system. F. C. $ Waicott P. C. Waleott, a member of tha United States food administration, nnd during the time America was feeding t.'ie civilian populations of Belgium, j S.-rbia and northern France nn assist- ' itnt of Mr. Hoover lu these Invaded I countries, has pictured in a graphic j v.ay the conditions he found anions ' the people it was his duty to help. ; After describing the terrible condl- . tions in Poland in 1D10, the millions that were dying of starvation, the hundreds of thousands of defenseless people that had been ruthlessly cut down hy the sword of the German conqueror, con-queror, he says : In that situation, the German com-iu:;:2tW com-iu:;:2tW Is.med a proclamation. Every idiie-oodied Pole was bidden to Ger-ttiatiy Ger-ttiatiy to work. If any refused, let no other Pole pive him to eat, not so much as a mouthful, under penalty of German military lsw. This is the choice the German government gov-ernment gives to the conquered role, to the husband and father of a starving starv-ing family: Lrrive your family or die or survive as the case may be. Leave jour country which is destroyed, .to ork in Germany for its further destruction. de-struction. If you are obstinate, wo snail see that you surely starve. Swyins with his folk, lie is doomed Bed they are not: saved ; the father and i husband can do nothing for them, he only adds to their risk and suffering, leaving them, he will be cut off from his family, they may never hear from him again nor he from them. Ger- : many will set him to work that a German Ger-man workman may be released to fight against his own land and people. He shall be lodged in barracks, behind barbed wire entanglements, under srmed guard. He shall sleep on the bare gTound with a single thin blanket, blan-ket, lie shall be scantily fed and his earnings shall be taken from him to jiay for his food. That is the choice which the German Ger-man government offers to a proud, sensitive, high-strung people. Death or slavery. When a Pole gave me that proclamation, proclama-tion, I was boiling. But I had to restrain re-strain myself. I was practically the only foreign civilian in the country nnd I wanted to get food to the people. That was what I was there for and I must not for any cause jeopardize the undertaking. I asked Governor General Gen-eral von Beseler, "Can this be true?" "Really, 1 cannot say," he replied. "I have signed so many proclamations; ask General Von Kries." So I asked General von Kries. "General, "Gen-eral, this Is a civilized people. Can this be true?" "Yes," he said, "it is true" with an nlr of arming, Why not? I dared not trust myself to speak ; I turned to go. "Wait," he said. And he explained to me how Germany, official Germany, regards the state of subject peoples. It is hard for us to imagine such a condition in America as Mr. Waicott has described as existing in Hun-ridden Poland, and yet that is just what would exist should our boys, and the boys of our allies, nnw fighting in France fail to defeat the soldiers of this murder empire. This fair country coun-try of ours would be made into a Ger-.aan Ger-.aan province; our people would be the slaves of the Junkers of Germany, subject to the beastly whims of the efficers of the German army. In no war in which America has ever engaged en-gaged have the stakes been so great as in this present Conflict. Should we, by any chance, lose; should the Hun, by any chance, win; our liberties, our happiness, everything Americans hold dear, would be lost. |