I have been often called upon for a statement of my observation of
German rule in Belgium and Northern France.
I have neither the desire nor the adequate pen to picture the scenes
which have heated my blood through the two and a half years that I
have spent in work for the relief of these 10,000,000 people.
[Sidenote: Belgian atrocities are the result of the "system."]
The sight of the destroyed homes and cities, the widowed and
fatherless, the destitute, the physical misery of a people but
partially nourished at best, the deportation of men by tens of
thousands to slavery in German mines and factories, the execution of
men and women for paltry effusions of their loyalty to their country,
the sacking of every resource through financial robbery, the battening
of armies on the slender produce of the country, the denudation of the
country of cattle, horses and textiles; all these things we had to
witness, dumb to help other than by protest and sympathy, during this
long and terrible time--and still these are not the events of battle
heat, but the effects of a grinding heel of a race demanding the
mastership of the world.
All these things are well known to the world--but what can never be
known is the dumb agony of the people, the expressionless faces of
millions whose souls have passed the whole gamut of emotions. And why?
Because these, a free and democratic people, dared plunge their bodies
before the march of autocracy.
I myself believe that if we do not fight and fight now, all these
things are possible to us--but even should the broad Atlantic prove
our present defender, there is still Belgium. Is it worth while for
us to live in a world where this free and unoffending people is to be
trampled into the earth and to raise no sword in protest?