Newell Dwight Hillis

“ Behold, its beauty is immortal! Everything else dies. Soon all the smoke and blood will go, but beauty and love and liberty will remain."
And then lifting the little book the old collector of Louvain pressed his lips to the vellum page, bright with the blue and crimson and gold of seven hundred years, and in a moment passed to the soul's summer land, where no shriek of German shells rends the air, where wicked Germans have ceased from troubling and where the French and Belgians, worn by the cruelty of the Huns, are now at rest and peace. ”

“ The two Biddle brothers looted the Bank of England, but they became outcasts upon the face of the earth, and always the dungeon yawned for them, just as the Kaiser and von Hindenburg never sleep at night without a vision of an oak tree, a long bough and a hemp rope dangling at the end, for the hemp is now twisted that will one day choke to death the murderous Kaiser and his War Staff.
Let no patriot, whether he lives in Spain, Russia or the United States, forget that ours is a world ruled by men who were defeated. ”

“ And when the German found he could not hold the land and enjoy the shade trees, the splendid orchards, the purple vineyards, he determined that the Frenchman should not have them, and so he lifted the axe upon every peach and pear, plum and grape, cherry and gooseberry tree. Perhaps it was as black a crime to murder the land as it was to murder the bodies of the farmers, since the soul is immortal. ”

“ France will never be the same again. The scar of the beast will abide. That is why no man of large mind and great heart will ever make friends with a soldier from Germany, will ever buy an article of German stamp, so long as he lives, will ever read another German book, or support another German business. It is our duty to forgive the transgressor who is repentant, but it is a crime to forget the unspeakable atrocities, the devilish cruelties of the German Kaiser, the German War Staff and the German army, with its 10,000,000 criminals. ”

“ She cried out that the very babe would be unclean, that it would be born a monster, that it was as if she was bringing into the world an evil thing, doomed in advance to direst hell. That every day and every hour she felt that poison was running through her veins. She turned upon the old priest, saying, "You insist that God alone gives life! Nay, no, no, no! It was a German devil that gave me this life that now throbs within my body! And every moment I feel that that life is pollution. German blood is poisoned blood. German blood is like putrefaction and decay, soiling my innermost life." ”

“ The Allies keep their treaties, and do not ask a German prisoner to fight against his brother. The Allies obey the laws of right and wrong, but the Ten Commandments are a great handicap in time of war. Is there any one who supposes that six million of Allied soldiers, working sixteen hours a day, are as fresh and as fit as six million Germans, working only eight hours a day? That is why the situation is so perilous. Fortunately victories are not won by muscle without but by the soul within. The sense of justice in the heart lends a form of omnipotence to a youth. ”

“ The time has fully come when Americans should ask themselves the question whether or not they have a moral right to support with money that could be far better used, in the war stamp purchases or Red Cross work, all these slackers and cowards, at a time when the motherland asks them to throw away their exemption papers, in an hour when civilization, liberty and humanity are treasures trembling in the balance. ”

“ This was typical of the thousands of soldiers at the front, for French soldiers suffer that the children may never have to wade through this blood and muck. The foul creature that has bathed the world in blood must be slain forever. With the full consent of the intellect, of the heart and the conscience, these glorious French boys have given themselves to God, to freedom, and to France. ”

“ These skillful German plotters printed at the bottom of Curtius's description the statement that each German soldier must look forward to a similar return from London, Paris and Brussels to march through the streets of Munich and Berlin.
What a dream was this German dream! What treasures were to be brought into Berlin! What marbles and bronzes of Rodin stolen from Paris! At last Berlin was to own beautiful paintings, for the treasures of the Louvre were to be the Kaiser's.
Never was there such a dream dreamed by peasants who soon were to become princes and kings and patricians. ”

“ Germany, Austria and Turkey to-day are patients in a world hospital. It is plain that they are stricken with death. The foul cancer of militarism has fastened itself upon Germany. The cancer of autocracy is eating into the vitals of Austria. The cancer of polygamy is enmeshed in the life of Turkey. Of late the disease has been spreading. Now these surgeons, named Foch, Haig and Pershing, have been anointed by the ointment of war black and sulphurous, and, lifting their scalpel, these men have been ordained to cut out the foul growth from the body-politic of Germany. ”

“ When you see this head of wheat, say to yourself 'One grain going into the ground shall in fifteen summers ripen into bread enough to feed sixteen hundred millions of the family of men.' When you look at this pressed poppy, say, 'His blood like red rain went to the root to make the flowers crimson and beautiful for all the world; soon the fields of France shall wave like a Garden of God, and peace and plenty shall dwell forever there. ”

“ Sister Julie stood squarely across the path of the Hun. "While I live you shall not enter. You shall not kill these dying men. I swear it by this crucifix! Your hands are already red with blood. God dwells within this house. Look at this figure of Jesus, who said, 'Woe unto him that offends against one of my little ones. These shall go away into everlasting hell.' I myself will bear witness against you. You have murdered our fifteen old men. All their lives long these old men did us good and not evil. Look at the little girls you have slain. God Himself will strike you dead." ”

“ A singular revulsion of sentiment as to what must be done with the German army after the war, is now sweeping over the civilized world. Men who once were pacifists, men of chivalry and kindness, men whose life has been devoted to philanthropy and reform, scholars and statesmen, whose very atmosphere is compassion and magnanimity towards the poor and weak, are now uttering sentiments that four years ago would have been astounding beyond compare. ”

“ Matrons, old men and priests slaughtered; young Italian officers with throats cut and hanging on hooks in butchers' shops; the bombing of Red Cross hospitals and nurses and the white flag; everything achieved by civilized man defiled and destroyed—reverence for childhood and age, the sanctity of womanhood, the standards of honour, fidelity to treaties and all destroyed, not in a mood of drunkenness or a fit of rage, but on a deliberate, cold, calculated policy of German frightfulness. ”

“ And here for the next war were Denmark and Holland, Belgium and northern France—so many jewel boxes that could be looted. To the eastward were Poland with her coal mines, Rumania with her oil fields and Russia with her wheat granaries. And once Central Europe became a Middle-Europe German Empire there was no reason why later on Germany should not extend her conquests to Russia on the east and England on the west, and then to North and South America.
It was a great scheme. Never was prize so rich. Never could obstacles be so easily swept away. ”

“ But after all, the loss of buried treasure that could never be found is only a faint emblem of the loss of human bodies and human minds. Think of the soldiers who have returned to find that the young wife or daughter whom they loved has disappeared forever! And think of the wives and sweethearts who have received word from their officers that the great shell exploded and killed the lover, but that no fragment of his body could be found! ”

“ With brazen audacity the German pamphlet tells the Spaniards that they have seized so many hundred thousand watches, so many hundred thousand rings, so much treasure of diamonds and jewels, so many paintings from rich men's houses, and the long boast ends with the statement that they "obtained nearly five billions of loot out of western Russia and have assessed two billions more upon the farmers, villages and cities of Ukraine."
But the boast is an idle and empty boast. It is true that no army of the Allies has crossed the German frontier to permanently hold a city. ”

“ During a most intimate and personal conversation with a banker, this German, the other day, explained his people's atrocities by saying that what is barbarism and atrocities to England, France or the United States is not barbarism at all to the Germans. In proof of this astounding statement the German gave this personal incident of his boyhood. He said that in his gymnasium there was another boy who had something that he wanted. When the opportunity came, being the stronger, he jumped upon the other boy, beat him up terribly and made him a cripple for life. ”

“ He was a Hun who devastated Italy fifteen hundred years ago. The motto of this black-hearted murderer Attila the Hun was: "Where my feet fall, let grass not grow for a hundred years." When the Kaiser read Attila's story he exclaimed: "That is the man for me!" First, he named his favourite son for Attila the Hun. Second, [21] in sending his German soldiers out to China, and later in 1914 to Belgium, he gave them this charge: "You will take no prisoners; you will show no mercy; you will give no quarter; you will make yourselves as terrible as the Huns under Attila." ”

“ But the most grievous loss is the human loss. Think of 1,500,000 crippled heroes and poor wounded invalids in the land of France alone! Think of another 1,500,000 young widows, or lovers and mothers! Gone the young men who promised so great things for the French essay, the French poem, for the paintings [160] and the bronzes! Dead the young lawyers, physicians and educators! Gone the young farmers and husbandmen! Perished 1,000,000 old people and 500,000 little children, all dead of heart-break. The German beast has been in the land. ”

“ A noble officer, himself wounded, put his coat under the old man's head and [111] made a pillow and bade him forget the German beast, the bomb shells, the blazing city. But all these foul deeds and all dangers now were as naught to the old man.
"See my little book," he said. "How beautiful the lettering! Why, upon this book, as upon a ship, civilization sailed across the dark waters of the Middle Ages. Look at this book of beauty. The ugliness of the tenth century is dead. The cruelty and the slavery of bloody tyrants is dead also. The old cannon are quite rusted away. ”

“ To-day certain German-Americans never tire of announcing their Americanism. Their favourite expression is: "Germany was the Fatherland, but the United States is the wife." Not daring, therefore, to attack our Government, afraid to confess that they want Germany to succeed, and when that time comes expect to hold certain offices under [142] Germany, they spend all their time vilifying Great Britain. There is one absolute and invariable test of the German-American's treason to this country, and that is bitterness towards England, because England is doing all she can to prevent Germany's victory. ”

“ The next morning, at ten o'clock, the officer entered the jail. "Get a move on you, young man!" he said brusquely. "You're going up to the court to be examined to see whether you are a slacker or a traitor. In the one case you will be interned and in the other case you will be hanged or shot."
The young anarchist was on his feet in a moment. "But, officer, aren't you going to give me a chance to enlist?"
"Young man, this Government does not want traitors to enlist, nor pro-Germans."
"I am not a pro-German this morning," cried the excited man. ”

“ The return of the refugees to Belgium and France holds the essence of a thousand tragedies. From the days of Homer down to those of Longfellow, with his story of Evangeline, literature has recounted the sad lot of lovers torn from one another's arms and all the rest of their lives going every whither in search of the beloved one, only to find the lost and loved when it was too late. ”