Page:America in the war -by Louis Raemaekers. (IA americainwarbylo00raem).pdf/92



The stout gentleman on the opposite page wears a pleased look, as if he were enjoying his occupation. That is natural, for he is a scientist engaged in a very pretty process—the propagation of lockjaw, typhus and other malignant germ cultures with which he expects to speed up the annihilation of his enemies. How does he propose to accomplish this? I will tell you: he is going to introduce those young and vigorous colonies of germs into those little packages marked with a cross which you see lying on the table before him. Those are Red Cross bandages, and they will presently be binding the wounds of our soldiers, and the lockjaw and typhus hordes in them will awake, and rally in a silent loathsome attack that will lay torture and death upon thousands which the noisy, mis-aimed guns have failed to destroy. The germ-man is assured that his atomic missiles will not be mis-aimed. His government has efficiently arranged for those packages to go to the hospitals of Roumania and Belgium and France. That is why he smiles—that is why he has that roguish look.

In the germ man's smile is incarnated "Deutschland über Alles" and its correlative, "The end justifies the means." We in America have produced exponents—criminal exponents—of a similar psychology, and we have generally (when we could catch them) hung or electrocuted or imprisoned for life these moral perverts, in order to make the world a safer and cleaner place to live in. Only a little while ago the State of New York electrocuted a man who, having set up his individual "Ueber Alles and General Justification" court, had proceeded cheerfully to introduce malignant germs and other deadly things into the foods and medicines of his wife's parents, who stood between himself and fortune. Here we have an exact parallel. Those defenceless old people were doing him no wrong. They in fact admired and trusted him, just as Rumania and Belgium and America only a little while ago admired and trusted Germany. They stood in his way, however, and from the "Ueber Alles" standpoint any means for their removal was warranted.

Secret assassination is an ancient art. It has been practised in every age and in every nation and its votaries have been hunted down and exterminated by decent people. To-day, for the first time in the history of the world, we have the spectacle of stealthy death for the defenceless adopted as a government policy. For the decency and safety of mankind the allied nations have highly resolved that the government which promotes such a policy must "perish from the earth."

ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE.