William T. Hornaday

“ The blunders, crimes and punishment of Germany are inseparably linked together.
The blunders of Germany constitute a spectacle of very much more than passing interest. The questions they raise are by no means academic. The logic of them is as inexorable as Death. They are of vital interest to every freeman, and to every state and nation that sincerely undertakes to conserve the rights of its people. To unhappy Austria, shoved into the war by Germany, they are of life or death interest. A correct view of Germany is now absolutely essential to the future freedom of man! ”

“ In our civilization, a wife who ends long years of torture by killing a brutal husband, always is tried, sentenced, and either imprisoned for life, or executed. This asinine world is most virtuous in the punishment of weak individuals; but we notice that it rarely tackles the job of meting out real justice to the greatest of all criminals. After this war is over, will any criminal, either at Berlin or Constantinople, be hanged or shot for the deliberate slaughter of 1,500,000 helpless Armenians, or for any of the hideous crimes committed in this war? ”

“ In spite of all their losses and miseries, even to-day the "German people" are absolutely devoted to the Kaiser, and cheerfully swallow all the lies that his cabinet and the Reichstag hand out to them. Why should even one American deceive himself about the millions of Germans who are at heart as mean and as cruel as Tirpitz and Zeppelin? Remember that German women hawk and spit in the faces of heroes who happen to be their prisoners! ”

“ Already in America there are signs of the inevitable "magnanimity" toward the great world criminal of the present world war, and of a movement for a whitewashed peace with "no annexations and no indemnities." There is danger that within six months Americans who do not know Germany will seek to snatch the boon of durable peace and human freedom from the Allied nations who have given their bravest and best men, literally by millions, and their wealth by billions, to protect the rights of man. A German peace means a German triumph, and the certainty of another war in the near future. ”

“ Think of a treaty of friendship with ravishers, and with the murderers of women and children and prisoners!
All sensible men know that the proper punishment of criminals is necessary for the protection of society from wolves and dragons, and for the general welfare of mankind. Unpunished crime always encourages and produces more crime. The world must not mistake softness of head for soundness of heart.
It is indeed high time that criminal nations should be punished for their crimes. ”

“ In essaying to give in one article even an outline sketch of the crimes of Germany, one is perplexed by the many different kinds of atrocities, and the great mass of instances and proofs bearing upon them. Out of it all there thrusts up the ugly fact, like a spear from a pile of corpses, that many of these crimes were committed intentionally, with malice aforethought, and often were deliberately ordered by German officers, both high and low. ”

“ In the affairs of the individual and the state, we hear a lot about "crime" and "criminals"; but it is an idiotic fact that the greatest of all crimes, those committed by nations on a vast scale, rarely are spoken of as crimes, and easily are condoned after the fighting stops. The world calls them either "wars" or "atrocities"; and the men who instigate them never are spoken of as criminals, and never are punished as such. Is it not curious?
Still less is the author of an inexcusable war, or a series of brutal atrocities, hanged, or shot, or even permanently imprisoned for his crimes. ”

“ After the war is over, will the men and women of America and England and France enjoy traveling in Germany, eating in German hotels, promenading in the Thiergarten of Berlin, and fraternizing with German army officers fresh from the war? Can they tell the ravishers of helpless women, and the murderers of children and old men, from the other men of Germany? ”

“ Americans of German descent may build monuments to their memory, but never again can they be set up for Americans to worship.
Through her crimes and her dirty fighting, Germany has earned the contempt and aversion of the world, and it will be paid to her as long as civilization endures. Whole libraries will be written about the brutalities of the German Germans, the cowardice of their navy, the blunders of their alleged statesmen, and the carnival of lies of the Kaiser and his advisors.
Men who fight honorably take their punishment like men, get over it, and often become friends again. ”

“ Guilty nations are no more immune from punishment for their crimes than are individuals guilty of high crimes. By their acts the German people now are heaping up dire punishment for themselves. The world is losing, with tremendous rapidity, its original and totally erroneous impression that "the German people" are innocent of the crimes that have been committed under the German uniform and the black-vulture flag. ”

“ The Simple Simons of Wilhelmstrasse actually believed that in any struggle with America, all Americans of German ancestry necessarily would be traitors to their own hearthstones, and would rise en masse, fully-armed, cobra-like, to strike the government of the United States. Being themselves ruthlessly devoted to the idea of might and conquest, and the merciless subjugation of small and weak nations, they judged their kindred in America by their own rotten standards. ”

“ It is ludicrous folly to permit the language of America's only real enemy to be taught in our schools. Never again will Americans need it. We can well do without the language of brutality and tyranny.
One of the few good services rendered by this German-made war concerns South America. It has shown Brazil, Argentina and even Mexico exactly where they stand with respect to the Monroe doctrine. If Germany should win this war, then should all the nations of South and Central America pray to God for deliverance; for with Germany in the saddle, their peace and prosperity would be gone forever. ”

“ When Germany is thoroughly beaten, as assuredly she will be, what shall be her punishment for her crimes?
The only sensible and correct policy to pursue toward a dirty-fighting enemy is to get him down and keep him down! No greater mistake could be made than for the Allies to become "magnanimous" to brutal Germany when the time comes to hand her what is coming to her in final settlement. We want no sissies nor weak sisters representing us at the peace conference, pleading for easy terms for Germany. ”

“ TIRPITZ AND THE SUBMARINE MURDERS.
For a submarine to sink a war vessel with all on board is merely war, no more and no less. No one whines about atrocities of that sort. All the world does object, however, and very strongly, too, to the sinking of unarmed passenger steamers, hospital ships, and Belgian relief ships. All such acts of murder as these are the acts of monsters, not of men. Of course we know that Germany sees her doom, and her people are wild over the certainty of defeat. But even a 90 per cent. defeated prize-fighter must not deliver a foul blow. ”

“ The officers are not alone to blame. Therefore, the curses of mankind, and the punishment of the ages, should fall and will fall upon all the Germans of Germany, and their children unto the tenth generation. To them the Germans of to-day will bequeath a vast legacy of world scorn and world aversion.
Americans should be the last people on earth to talk to outraged England, France, Russia and Servia of "magnanimous" terms to Germany, and peace "without annexations or indemnities." Germany must Pay for her war and her crimes. ”

“ The callousness of the women of Germany toward the ravishment, wounding, torture and ghastly mutilation of their sisters in Belgium, France, England, Servia, Poland and Armenia is astounding, beyond belief. But we are learning a lot these days.
Germany deliberately permitted the atrocious Turks to murder about 1,500,000 helpless Armenians; and so far as we know, not one person in Germany, high or low, has uttered one little protest against that colossal crime. Can you beat it! As the world knows very well, Germany absolutely controls Turkey, and drove her into the war ”

“ There are criminals and criminals. Some deserve succor; others merit quick extermination. The confirmed criminal is in a class by himself. He is unfit to live; but as the very smallest measure of self-protection, society should punish him for his crimes, and render him innocuous for the future. In other words, every confirmed criminal should either be killed or segregated, and made to exist in a little hell of his own, while decent people go their respective ways in peace and security. ”

“ The world will cheerfully go naked and hungry ere it accepts food and clothes made in Germany. Americans with self respect will refuse to buy German goods, or to trade in stores that offer them for sale,—not indeed to "punish" Germany, but because the source is so loathsome and offensive. Germany, Austria and Turkey already have the contempt, the scorn and the hatred of the whole world, and after the war they should be ostracised and shunned for a thousand years. ”

“ Saith the Psalmist with inspiration from the same God whom the German Kaiser piously and persistently claims as his silent partner,
"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God."
And to pan-Germany, Turkey and Austria we transmit that solemn promise of Holy Writ of what is in store for them, in punishment for their high crimes against humanity.
After the war, nothing can save them from existence in a hell of national poverty, and world-wide scorn and aversion, all of their own making. ”

“ The whole nation, Socialists and all, had become afflicted with acute megalomania, and a real elephantiasis of egotism. They thought that by being sufficiently prepared, and sufficiently treacherous and cruel, they could bring all Europe under the German heel, to toil forever in the German yoke. ”

“ She does not make the mistake of tolerating traitors and assassins at home. If her soldiers mutinied on the firing line, and refused to fight the enemy, as some rotten-hearted Russian soldiers recently have done most disastrously, Germany would not make the mistake of letting one of them live to tell it. In solidarity, unity of purpose and devotion to the nation's policy, the German people are a shining example to America. They are more devoted to a bad cause than our slackers and traitors are to a good one. It is high time for us to teach our traitors some severe lessons ”

“ For fifty years we have been reading of the wars of nations,—white, black, red, brown and yellow,—but never in modern times have we seen such ghastly, such loathsome, such shocking and sickening brutalities of lust as German officers and soldiers inflicted, wholesale, upon the women of Belgium and northern France. ”

“ Germany now resembles a rat in a pit, furious from countless defeats, insane with baffled hate and rage, and wild with a fearful certainty of her Finish. All her fine plans, and twenty years of active preparation, have gone awry. ”

“ The war should not and will not end until Germany has surrendered every foot of invaded territory now occupied by the Teutonic allies, and agreed to pay to Belgium an indemnity of about $5,000,000,000 with another $5,000,000,000 to France, or the equivalent thereof, and the return of Alsace and Lorraine. The delivery to England of her cowardly navy as a pledge of future good behavior is really immaterial. The German navy is chiefly a scuttling navy, great only against unarmed ships and fishing boats, but never willing to meet any foe on equal terms. ”

“ Eight million men, to whom America shortly will add at least two million more, bravely are risking their lives on the battlefields of Europe and Asia in an effort to put two criminal nations,—Germany and Turkey,—into an exclusive hell of their own, and keep them there for the protection of civilization. ”

“ The Turkish crimes in Armenia must be computed in millions, and the wanton murder of a million Armenians is directly chargeable to the rulers of Germany, who deliberately permitted it to be done.
And even now, many good people who refuse to concern themselves with the woes of men and women who are far away, will decry all attempts to punish the Germans and Turks for their crimes. ”

“ Will we buy goods made by blood-stained German hands, that have dragged Belgian and French girls from their screaming mothers? Will we buy and use goods made on stolen Belgian machines, of materials stolen from France? Will we patronize the German "science" that produced chlorine gas for British soldiers, or the German artillery artists who have gleefully pounded the Cathedral of Rheims into ruins? ”

“ It is not a pleasing task to set forth the details of revolting crimes, but it now has become very necessary that all Americans, of South America as well as North, should be shown the true character of the soldiers and civilians of Germany, and the men in high places who have ordered and fostered the high crimes of the past three years. ”

“ THE BOMBING OF CIVILIANS IN LONDON AND ELSEWHERE.
The Kaiser and Zeppelin, and the German people, have spent many millions of dollars in deliberate attempts to slaughter the unarmed inhabitants of London, and strafe England. All the German talk about attacking "the fortress of London" is beneath contempt. Rarely indeed has a soldier been injured in London, or any other English city, by a Zeppelin or an airplane bomb. It has been the helpless women, school-children and other non-combatants who have been blown to pieces. ”

“ On no other hypothesis is it possible to account for the endless series of insults, injuries and treacheries that were handed out to the United States from the early sinking of the Robert Dollar down to the final declaration of ruthless submarine war on American commerce and American lives.
Never in all the history of nations did any strong nation ever endure without war one one-hundredth part of the causes for war that were heaped upon us by Germany between August 1, 1914, and the final severance of relations. ”