OCR Text |
Show Chaplain Would Exterminate Foe Baltimore, Mil. Kev. George A. Orittin, a Baltimore Protestant Episcopal Episco-pal clergyman serving as chaplain wltli tli Fifth field artillery, the regiment regi-ment that fired America's first shot in tilt? war, has w rittt n a letter to Dr. Llenry Barton Jacobs, a pnnniuent Bul-timoreaii, Bul-timoreaii, which was printed in full in Hie curri'iit issue of tiie Manufacturers' liecord, in which he discusses at length cruellies indicted liy the Gerinniis upon civilians ami soldiers. "I feel," he says, "that I express the sentiment of those who have seen and heard over here, v. hen I say that were I in America today, priest as I ail), I should do my hest to have put to death tiny I'.oche in America or any so-called American who would apologize in any way lor what the Boehe has done. "All that you have heard in America about tliein does in, approximate the truth. There are little children right here in France with their little stumps nf hands; there were some not far from my last camp, and young men with all the lingers of their rilit hand cut off. Tim other day a British otlicer and three Tommies told me that a short time ago they went as an advance party Into a little village from which the Boehe had been driven buck, and In a large room there were four young Canadians crucified, one on each wall of the room. Torture Young Girls, "Also, when I was with the British they told me the Boches had taken young Belgian and French girls into their first line trenches and tortured them until their screams made the Scotch and the Canadians so crazed Ihey would go over into the machine gun nests which the Boche had set up, using 1 1 10 women's screams as a decoy. "And I have it on the word of a British Brit-ish olliccr that they have stood (the ollicers) with guns leveled at their men to keep them from going over when the women scream, and being needlessly slaughtered. I cannot tell you what the Tommies told me they found when they drove these Itell-licnds out of these positions; it is too awful even to think nhout. I also have it on the word of :mc of I lie greatest French abbes that the Boche were especially instructed to destroy convents and kill or outrage the nuns a'nd he says that all through France and Belgium are ruined convents, con-vents, and Ihat t He nuns were given to the soldiers to be outraged in camps. "These are not isolated cases nor abnormal ab-normal conditions .which prevail here and there where troops were drunk or without restraint. Go along the French or British front, and the only conclusion conclu-sion you arrive at is that they are. Just the ground principle of Boche efficiency ef-ficiency in action. "It is American blood that is flowing now, and Cod grant it may give Ar .erica .er-ica some strength to realize wha'.. we are up against. To talk of terms until the Boche is exterminated is to league witli Satan for a corner In hell. Privations, Priva-tions, sacrifices! What can you do at home to compare with what these men uf ours are doing over here? Meatless lays, wheat less days, sugarless days, cood women knitting, benefits for the Red Cross or all your social diversions diver-sions with a charitable object sand-Iviched sand-Iviched in ! "When you are out on a shell-swept hill and the shells are going by like bats out of hell, as the soldiers say, and it's dark as the grave, and every man, God bless him ! stands strong and true, camouflaging all his own feelings for your sake and for the sake of what he has hack home, meatless days and wheatless days, and Liberty bond campaigns cam-paigns seem cheap as your support of him in such an hour. "Loathe the Boche preach against him work against him, wherever he is, ostracize him socially and commercially. commer-cially. Take no chance even though his reputation for loyally has been a long-standing one. The leopard cannot change his spots neither can the I'.oche demon lose his horns. I'm begging beg-ging you now as the Boche are trying try-ing to murder us to help wake every one up to the fact that America must realize what -the world is facing over here. Can't you see it can't America see It how everything is hanging in the balance? And I know that the weight which shall cast it down is when your loathing for the Boche will so burn in you as to make you count nothing consider nothing but his extermination." NAVAL OFFICER HONORED j ; - "A i - 1 - Lieutenant Commander Carpendor of the United States navy, who received re-ceived the distinguished service order from King George. |