in disgust from the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania,
the shooting of Edith Cavell, from the wanton destruction of monuments.
All these barbarities are indisputable facts, which may be explained
and extenuated, but cannot be denied. There is another class of
barbarities,--the so-called "atrocities,"--which are more easily denied,
but which most people who have taken the trouble to examine the charges
know to be equally true. The record of these multiplied atrocities is
so enormous and so well authenticated that it would seem to me useless
to add any words to the theme were it not for an amazing attitude of
indifference to the subject on the part of many Americans. "We don't
want to hear any more atrocity stories," they say. "Perhaps the
atrocities have been exaggerated, probably there's truth on both sides.
Anyway, war is brutal as every one knows." Some newspapers will not
publish the atrocity charges, whether because of our popular prejudice
against anything "unpleasant" unless freshly sensational or because of
more sinister reasons, the reader may judge.

This attitude is both evasive and cowardly. It is essential to
understand the atrocity for a proper realization of the war and of
the German menace. It is false to say that all war is barbarous, and
that in every war similar atrocities have occurred. As Mr. Hilaire
Belloc has well said,--"Men have often talked during this war ... as
though the crime accompanying Prussian activities in the field were
normal to warfare.... It is of the very first importance to appreciate
the truth that Prussia in this campaign has postulated in one point
after another new doctrines which repudiate everything her neighbors
have held sacred from the time when a common Christianity first began
to influence the states of Europe. The violation of the Belgian
territory is on a par with the murder of civilians in cold blood, and
after admission of their innocence, with the massacre of priests and