Chapter M: ZAIMIS, June 13, 1917

_REPRISALS_

_The Only Answer_

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The important announcement that the City will be warned in future when an air raid is threatened was made on Sunday by the Lord Mayor, at a meeting at the London Opera House, called to demand reprisals for air raids. A resolution calling on the Government to undertake air reprisals on German towns and cities was passed, amidst great cheering.

_London, June 19, 1917._

_A DISGUISE THAT WAS TOO THIN_

_Bethmann-Hollweg: "That Socialist's disguise is no good, All Highest. Let's try another clerical peace trick."_

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All over the world attempts were made to create distrust of German Social Democracy. We were described as being really war agitators, obedient servants of German Imperialism. The memorandum on our peace work which we delivered at Stockholm will, we hope, destroy many misunderstandings and many prejudices which are based on them.

Of course the misstatements and slanders have already begun again.

HERR SCHEIDEMANN,
_Stockholm, June 29, 1917._

_Dr. Michaelis: "The concentration of the Russian Army compelled Germany to seize the sword. There was no choice left to us."_

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We must keep before our eyes daily the events of three years ago, which are fixed in history and show that we were forced into war by Russia's secret mobilization, which was the great danger for Germany. To have participated in a conference while the Russian mobilization proceeded would have been political suicide.

HERR MICHAELIS,
_Berlin, July 27, 1917._

_THE NEW ST. GEORGE_

_"Give us the means and we will slay this German dragon that threatens our towns, our women, and children."_

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Southend was bombed by about a dozen German aëroplanes this evening while the place was full of holiday-makers. The attack lasted a quarter of an hour and resulted in the death of twenty-three people, the majority of whom were women and children. About forty people were injured. One of the victims was a little girl, who was terribly mangled, and another was a woman, who was also badly mutilated.

_Times, August 17, 1917._

_GERMAN "MILITARIST" SOCIALISM_

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Does not the cartoonist Raemaekers fail in this cartoon? The artist Raemaekers is inspired--here as always. But does the cartoonist succeed this time in burning the right idea, his idea, into the reader's brain?

Here is the real Kaiser and here are real German workingmen. It is they who are carrying the burden of Kaiserism. All this is convincing. But do not other workingmen in other countries carry burdens?

The failure is only at first glance. Raemaekers is not concerned to reproduce the conventional cartoon of workingmen carrying a burden of other classes on their shoulders. The point lies not in the burden, but in the nature of the burden, the contrast, so perfectly portrayed, between the character of the Kaiser and the characters of his proud and willing slaves. The Kaiser, crafty and contemptuous, but neither so ignorant nor so stupid as to be wholly unconscious of the foolish and contemptible position he occupies! The workingmen evidently once strong, intelligent and enthusiastic, though now blinded and crippled, are utterly unconscious of what they are doing. Carrying the heavy burden of Kaiserism seems no more to them than their day's work.

You see Raemaekers knows both Kaiser and workingmen, and so will have nothing to do with the conventional portraits of either. The Kaiser is neither a beast nor a fool--however foolish his position may be. The workingmen are neither labor heroes ready to revolt, nor conscious and beaten serfs.

WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING.

_THE ANNEXATION OF AMERICA_

_"I think, All Highest, we had better not insist upon the annexation of America."_

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In the inscription "Ten Million Men between 21 and 30" on the Statue of Liberty, Raemaekers has as usual gone to the heart of things. Ten million trained citizen soldiers!!! What an insurance of peace and security against attack or insult. Universal Citizen Military Education and Training.

From the beginning the first article in our Internatíonal Creed has been the Monroe Doctrine--America for Americans. If the result of the present war shall be to add two additional items to that creed, namely Universal Military Education and Training, and the United States, the First Air Power in the world, it will be worth all that it costs, and this great nation can go on in peace and security to work out the mighty destiny awaiting it.

Raemaekers' placing "All Highest" and his aide upon the conning tower of a submarine, suggests another most vital matter at this present time.

The submarine has held the world's spotlight for the last two years. Its deadly efficiency is universally conceded. That deadly efficiency is the direct result of Admiral von Tirpitz's unyielding insistence on a centralized, independent, untrammeled Department for the submarine.

PEARY.

_A REHEARSAL_

_"When I say, Down with Wilson! you all cheer!"_

_AT THE HOLLAND FRONTIER_

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Whether the war be long or short, the quickest road to peace is the road straight ahead of us, with no division among the American people.

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

_RESTITUTION AND REPARATION_

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The Prussian theory of right and justice is this: "What is mine is mine. What is yours is also mine if I want it."

This idea is deep buried beneath the thick bone of the Prussian head. He holds it with stolid stupidity and deep, prehistoric crudity, like a pig or an idiot. He cannot understand that there are any rights higher than Prussian greed. "If I want it, it is mine because I want it." It is the logic of the primitive human animal, the caveman.

Cornered and accused of his thefts he clings to his loot like the pig that has stolen a carrot. When asked to disgorge he is shocked by the suggestion. "But they are mine! I wanted them, so they are mine!" he says. Right and Justice answer, "They are not yours; you stole them." "Maybe so!" says the Prussian. "But just the same they are mine--I stole them a long time ago."

The logic of the Prussian fills ten thousand volumes. It is written in hundred-line paragraphs and six-inch words. It can be condensed into two short words--piggish greed; piggish because it knows neither right nor justice, greed because it is greed.

ELLIS PARKER BUTLER.

_"SOMETHING'S WRONG. SHE DOESN'T SEEM TO INSPIRE CONFIDENCE"_

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It is Germany's "Kultur," her spiritual code, that is responsible for America's entrance into the war; her gruesome sacrifice to Moloch of all which distinguishes humanity from the brute and the savage. It is her philosophy which has made us her horrified but resolute foe.

The fruits of her spirit stand forth alike in her speech and acts. "Kultur is a spiritual organization of the world, which does not exclude bloody savagery. It raises the dæmoniac to sublimity. It is above morality, reason, science," so wrote a Teutonic expounder in the first year of the war. "We have become a nation of wrath; we think only of the war. We execute God Almighty's will, and the edicts of His justice we will fulfil, imbued with holy rage, in vengeance upon the ungodly. God calls us to murderous battles, even if worlds should thereby fall to ruins," so wrote one of Germany's poets. "Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from the bottom of his heart the sinking of the _Lusitania_, whoever cannot conquer his sense of the gigantic cruelty to unnumbered perfectly innocent victims--and give himself up to honest delight at this victorious exploit of German defensive power--him we judge to be no true German," so wrote one of her pastors. And for hideous, ruthless deeds which violate every sanctity and deify falsehood we need but cite her slaughter of children and the aged, her poisoning of wells, her shooting of nurses, her sinking of hospital ships, her brutal deportations and all the revolting sinuosities of her spy system.

ROBERT GRANT.

_"WHEN I WAS A CHILD, IT WAS YOU WHO SAVED ME"_

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Whether it is that an invigorating climate has given our Anglo-Saxon blood a piquant Gallic flavor or because Europe sent us for ancestors only those light-hearted and adventurous souls with a spirit akin to that we admire in the French people, true it is that Americans have always had an especial liking for France and the French. They were our first allies as they are the latest. From Lafayette and Rochambeau to Joffre and Viviani, a host of Frenchmen have won the affectionate regard of Americans and are numbered with our national heroes.

With their French allies Americans can work in most cordial understanding and sympathy. That subtle spirit of unselfish dedication to country which has won for the French the admiration of the world consecrates the alliance of the peoples who are giving their sons in common sacrifice to save liberty to the world. Out of the heat and turmoil of war bonds are being forged between the Allied nations which time and circumstance can never sever. On that alliance the hope of civilization depends; from it may come, in God's good time, some great forward step in the march of progress which began at a manger in Bethlehem.

MYRON T. HERRICK,
_Cleveland, Ohio, March, 1918_.

_FOR MERIT_

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If, as the artist suggests, and the plainest reading of the facts of the fruitless Verdun assault seems to confirm, lives of men were squandered in a reckless attempt to save the princeling's face (which was, in fact, beyond saving), then does he richly deserve the grim decoration with which in the name of infamy he is here invested--the Order of Butchery, with knives. And you may view the crosses upon the pathetic mounds before Verdun as so many entries in the Recording Angel's ledger.

JOSEPH THORP.