July 4th, 1917 
171 
WISCONSIN H 0 R T I C U L T U R E 
SPECIAL/ EDITION . 
The Crimes of Germany. 
The world is not hostile to Ger- 
many because it is unwilling that 
Germany should have a fair 
chance in the world, or because 
it had mi the beginning any spe- 
cial love for the enemies of Ger- 
many. When the war began it 
was a fair field and no favor with 
most of the neutrals. Germany 
has alienated a dozen nations by 
the faithlessness, the brutality, 
the arrogant contempt for the 
rights of others, that its govern- 
ment has displayed at every stage 
of the war. It has been its own 
worst enemy ; it has written its 
own condemnation in the eyes of 
the world; it has done its best to 
convince everyone that German 
domina 1- .' n in the affairs of man- 
kind would be a calamity that civ- 
ilization must avert, even if it per- 
ish in the attempt. 
The violation of Belgium and 
the looting and burning of Bel- 
gian cities and French villages; 
the horror of the Luisitania am 
the atrocity of the submarine war 
fare, in which the murder of non- 
combatants and neutrals is cyn- 
ically planned and coolly carried 
out ; the spiteful destruction of 
priceless memorials of the piety 
and artistic feeling of the human 
race ; the invention of the Zeppe- 
lin raid and the poison-gas attack ; 
the offenses — some of them name- 
less — against the liberty and the 
Honor of i reneh and Belgian non- 
combatants ; the wanton and 
wicked desolation of the evacu- 
ated country of the enemy; the 
deliberate sinking of hospital 
ships; ‘‘he Armenian massacie?, 
which the Kaiser could have 
stopped by raising his finger — 
those tilings have one by one 
brought about a universal hard- 
ening of the world’s heart 
against the government that can 
order such deeds. 
We long hoped that the charges 
against the Germans were exag- 
gerated through passion and prej- 
udice. Here and there single ac- 
cusations may be without basis, 
but the great outstanding facts 
are well known. Our own diplo- 
matic representatives resident 
abroad have told us enough in 
their official reports to convince 
us that Germany makes war in 
defiance of the laws of decency 
and humanity that other nations 
recognize ; that it considers the 
slow and painful progress that 
civilization has made as a thing 
of no moment, a thing to be ruth- 
lessly sacrificed if it restricts Ger- 
man ambition. The Kaiser once 
ordered his soldiers to fight as the 
hordes of Attila fought and to 
nake the name of German 
dreaded as that of the Hun was 
dreaded in the ancient days. 
They have obeyed him; but is it 
necessary to remind them that 
Attila and his hordes were not 
beloved among the civilized peo- 
ple of those early centuries? 
Neither can air^ nation that fash- 
ions itself upon such a model ex- 
pect to prosper in the affections 
of mankind. — -Yoioth’s Companion. 
