"BRUSSELS,
"_November 18, 1916, 46 Rue de la Madeleine_.
"His Excellency Mr. BRAND WHITLOCK,
"_Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States of America_.
"MR. MINISTER:
"From the depths of our well of misery our supplication rises to you.
"In addressing ourselves to you, we denounce to your Government, as
well as to our sisters, the women of the nation which you represent
in our midst, the criminal abuse of force of which our unhappy and
defenseless people is a victim.
"Since the beginning of this atrocious war we have looked on
impotently and with our hearts torn with every sorrow at terrible
events which put our civilization back into the ages of the barbarian
hordes.
[Sidenote: No shadow of excuse for deportations.]
"Mr. Minister, the crime which is now being committed under your eyes,
namely, the deportation of thousands of men compelled to work on enemy
soil against the interests of their country, can not find any shadow
of excuse on the ground of military necessity, for it constitutes a
violation by force of a sacred right of human conscience.
"Whatever may be the motive it can not be admitted that citizens may
be compelled to work directly or indirectly _for_ the enemy _against_
their brothers who are fighting.
"The Convention of The Hague has consecrated this principle.
"Nevertheless, the occupying power is forcing thousands of men to this
monstrous extremity, which is contrary to morals and international
law, both these men who have already been taken to Germany and those
who to-morrow will undergo the same fate, if from the outside, from
neutral Europe and the United States, no help is offered.
[Sidenote: The women of Belgium have kept back their tears.]
"Oh! The Belgian women have also known how to carry out their duty in
the hour of danger; they have not weakened the courage of the soldiers
of honor by their tears.
"They have bravely given to their country those whom they loved. * * *
The blood of mothers is flowing on the battle-fields.
"Those who are taken away to-day do not go to perform a glorious
duty. They are slaves in chains who, in a dark exile, threatened by
hunger, prison, death, will be called upon to perform the most odious
work--service to the enemy against the fatherland.
"The mothers can not stand by while such an abomination is taking
place without making their voices heard in protest.
"They are not thinking of their own sufferings, their own moral
torture, the abandonment and the misery in which they are to be placed
with their children.
[Sidenote: The rights of honor and conscience.]
"They address you in the name of the inalterable rights of honor and
conscience.
"It has been said that women are 'all powerful suppliants.'
"We have felt authorized by this saying, Mr. Minister, to extend our
hands to you and to address to your country a last appeal.
"We trust that in reading these lines you will feel at each word the
unhappy heartbeats of the Belgian women and will find in your broad
and humane sympathy imperative reasons for intervention.
"Only the united will of the neutral peoples energetically expressed
can counterbalance that of the German authorities.
"This assistance which the neutral nations can and, therefore, ought
to lend us, will it be refused to the oppressed Belgians?
"Be good enough to accept, Mr. Minister, the homage of our most
distinguished consideration."
(Signed by a number of Belgian women and 24 societies.)
The United States Government did not fail to respond to this touching
appeal and to others of a similar nature. The American Embassy at
Berlin promptly took up the burning question of the deportations with
the Chancellor and other representatives of the German Government. In
an interview with the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr.
Grew was handed an official statement of the German plans, which is, in
translation, as follows: