Sartell Prentice

“ The awful tale of helpless ships sunk so as to leave no trace, the shelling of life boats, the sinking of hospital ships, the bombing of hospitals and ambulances, the crucifixion of men, the outraging of women, the torturing of children, the enslaving of entire populations, all these barbarisms are proved not merely by the testimony of many witnesses, but from the lips of the very soldiers and sailors of Germany herself. ”

“ The American citizen who is opposed to England because of the memories of 1776, or because of the attitude of the English Government in 1861, we can understand. We can argue with him sympathetically, for his antagonism is based on American history imperfectly studied. But the German-American who hates England, not because of what she has at any time done to America, but because of what he thinks she has done or would do to Germany and who [Pg 61] spreads the poison of his hatred through America, is admittedly disloyal. ”

“ When we see one American boy going through a barrage of fire seven times to bring ammunition up to the front, when we hear another mortally wounded hand over his grenades saying "I can't use these now, take them and use them," when we see the entire line, outnumbered eight to one, give ground slowly, exacting the maximum price for every yard and then at last come back, driving the Germans out of the village, out of every captured trench, until the [Pg 70] flag once more covers every foot of ground over which it has flown at the sunrise; we know the soul of America still lives. ”

“ We are protecting the freedom and dignity of Labor. I wish every laboring man could be made to understand Labor's stake in this war. The leaders of American labor, for the most part, have understood from the beginning. ”

“ So Germany will give back Belgium.
She will give back Serbia, but she cannot give back the Serbians. Those that have survived the battlefield, the famine, plague and pestilence are being, or have been, massacred. Her farms are tenantless, her cities empty, the grass is growing in her [Pg 30] streets. Never again shall Serbia bar Germany's drive to the east. Her abandoned leaseholds invite true Germans to move in and take possession. So Germany will give back Serbia. But England must give back Mesopotamia and let Germany come down to the Persian Gulf! ”

“ We can see to it that every child [Pg 41] in our schools, in our churches, in our homes, nay, that every man and woman, too, in all America shall be brought up to love and reverence every star in our flag, to such a consecration of life to all for which that flag stands as shall produce a devotion and loyalty that shall outmatch the best that Germany can do. ”

“ Do you realize that ever since this war broke out in 1914, not a ship has sailed from any Atlantic port of America or Canada, but that it has carried Americans, men of our flesh and blood, speaking our language to fight this battle against the Beast. ”

“ Wherever men have fallen, these have fallen; wherever men have died, on the land, in the air, on the sea or in German prison camps, these have died; their ashes lie mingled with those of England's best, their bones rest in the soil of Serbia, Italy, Belgium and France.
[Pg 65]
"We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. ”

“ A great propaganda is being waged throughout this country which is intended to arouse suspicion, distrust and antagonism towards England. The Germanic value of that propaganda is obvious. It is dangerous to-day to advocate sympathy for Germany, but if German agents can sow seeds of distrust among the Allies and can divide England, France and America or hinder their perfection of [Pg 44] coöperation Germany will be the gainer. ”

“ At any expense Germany means to have boys that, twenty years from now, when France is still exhausted from this struggle and before England shall have regathered her strength, Germany shall have a new army to send over the Rhine, through spent Belgium and unrecuperated France. ”

“ You know that boys and girls, men and women were torn from their homes, packed into cattle cars and sent on long journeys, with insufficient food and clothing, into Germany. There they were threatened with rifles, bayonets, and machine guns to compel them to sign statements to the effect that they were voluntary workers in German munition factories. Do you know that girls have been beaten with whips for failing to complete their tasks? ”

“ In 1901 Freiherr von Edelsheim of the German General Staff wrote a book on sea power, in which he briefly out [Pg 35] lined a German plan for the conquest of America and said: "Germany is the only power in a position to conquer America." If once we and our allies let go our grip, if we grow soft, if we falter and fail, be very sure we and our children shall pay to the full the penalty. ”

“ A great public meeting was held in London on New Year's Eve which hailed the dawn of an era of universal freedom and of closer friendship between England and [Pg 50] America. At the same time a similar gathering in Manchester, stricken as it was with the cotton famine, adopted similar resolutions addressed to the President of the United States. At Sheffield a vast gathering passed resolutions to the effect that it was the duty of England to give her sympathy and moral support to the Northern States. All England took up the cry within the next few weeks. ”

“ Germany has forty-nine million tons of iron a year; Austria has very little iron, Italy has none, neither Roumania, Bulgaria or Serbia have any iron, Turkey has none except in Mesopotamia, which Germany will control. Who then will be the master of that Middle Empire? ”

“ Let every laboring man, skilled or unskilled, understand his own vital stake in the winning of this war.
Now look at some of the issues of this war.
You know Germany's dream of a Middle Empire; of a great new kingdom that is to stretch from the English Channel to the Persian Gulf, from the borders of Normandy through Mesopotamia. It is to include Northeastern France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Austro-Hungary, parts of Switzerland and [Pg 20] Italy, Serbia, Roumania, Turkey, Armenia, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. ”

“ The rest—the ineffectives, the very old and the very young, the weak and the useless—we mean to place in front of the firing line, put firing squads behind them, and drive them through the French and English lines, that France and England may take care of them." That [Pg 7] is what Germany has been doing ever since the war broke out. Wherever her armies have gone, from Armenia to Serbia, Poland, Belgium, and France, she has been driving women, children, and men through our lines for us to care for. ”

“ There is a juvenile paper published in Germany that recently contained an article whose substance follows: "War is divine, it is glorious. When the soldier falls upon the battlefield, his spirit goes directly to the gates of Paradise, where all good soldiers go, but none of those old women in petticoats who say that war is brutal; there a Prussian Lance Corporal throws wide the door." ”

“ Each one of us has his own—not to all of us is the same kind given. To some of us it is the [Pg 4] Red Cross, to others it is the voice or the pen, to every one of us it is the buying of Liberty Bonds, to some of us it is the Training Camp, the Trench, and the Battlefield. ”

“ The writer says that in Prussia, whose population is two thirds that of all Germany, only one twentieth of the householders have an income equal to $750 a year, while over fifty per cent are living on $225 a year or less; more than 820,000 of the population of Berlin are living in single rooms, while 49,991 of these single rooms house from five to thirteen people each. Large numbers of the Prussian work people are doomed to live and die in quarters narrower than a prison cell. ”

“ In summer time they are in the fields at five or six o'clock in the morning and they work until eight o'clock or later at night. For this they are paid as high as forty-eight cents a day in harvest time." We have a Contract Labor Law which forbids the importation of labor. Germany every year imports a million laborers from abroad and the employers favor both the employment of women in farm work and the im [Pg 12] portation of labor, for the more workers the lower the scale of wages throughout the Empire. ”

“ This Empire could provide an army of fifteen million men in times of peace and of forty million in times of war. Its railroads, rivers and canals afford the most complete transportation system heart could desire. ”

“ The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.... It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced ... ”

“ Nay, it is more than this; it is not men, women and children, but it is the very essence and principle of manhood, womanhood, and childhood that she has been forcing through our lines and that we have called upon to care for. ”

“ Their appeals to the manhood of the country have been stirring and stimulating, and to-day Labor is beginning to respond. There are fewer strikes and more effectiveness. But the individual laboring man did not grasp the issues from the first. If he had there would not have been 3000 strikes in the first year of our war, with a total of 6000 years of labor lost. Let me speak for a moment of Labor's stake in this war.
Ambassador Gerard says, "The [Pg 10] workingmen in the cities of Germany are worked longer and get less out of life than any other workmen in the world. ”

“ In peace times a skilled mechanic receives less than two dollars [Pg 11] a day, for which he must work at least ten hours." He says that he visited a nobleman on his estate in Hungary, where—as throughout the Central Empires,—the agricultural work is largely done by women who are paid twenty cents a day. "The women in the farming districts of Germany are worked harder than the cattle. ”

“ The German Governor of Antwerp also gave his pledge to Cardinal Mercier, first verbally and then in writing, that "young men need not fear deportation into Germany whether for enrollment in the army or for employment at forced labor." ”

“ But they did not really receive that for they were under a military Governor who had the power to fine them up to fifty dollars for the infraction of any one of a hundred petty military rules, for failure to salute an officer, for instance, and remember, the German salutes his officer when he is two blocks away. In other words they were subject to a fine, without appeal, which was equal to more than two and one third years' pay at six cents a day! We have the record of a girl, which is interesting only because she is a type, who received 187 cents for 180 days work, about one cent a day. ”

“ Over there in the cowardly [Pg 39] trenches lie the enemy, and no one but a dog will say that mercy should be given to-day. Shoot down everything that cries for mercy; kill everything like dogs; more enemies, more enemies, be your prayer in this day of retribution. ”

“ And this Germany wants peace because she is already dreaming of another war. Frederick Nauman, member of the Reichstag, tells us that she will build barns and granaries to hold a supply of food sufficient for her entire population for ten years ”