"A Poisoned World "
Thus is characterized the world’s present condition by Ex-President, Mr. William Howard Taft, in the National Geographic Magazine, in speaking of the principles by which leaders of a great nation have wronged multitudes and filled the world with heartrending scenes of sorrow. He says:
"The doctrine preached openly in the philosophy of that country was that there is no international morality; that there is no rule by which a nation may be governed except that of self-preservation, as it is called, which means self-exploitation over the ruins of other civilizations, of other peoples and other nations.
" So deftly has that conspiracy been carried on that the minds of a great people-a people that have demonstrated their greatness in many fields – have been poisoned into the conviction that it is their highest duty to subordinate every consideration of humanity to the exaltation and the development of military force, so that by that force they can take from the rest of the world what is needed to accomplish their destiny, at whatever cost of honor or principle.
" I yield to no man in my admiration for most of the qualities of the German people except this obsession that they have been given through the instilling of that poison in the last fifty years."
As examples of how and what these principles have wrought, we quote from the report of Mr. Frederick Walcott, speaking of the Red Cross' unprecedented needs in its efforts to relieve vast and unspeakable misery. He says:
I want to impress upon you what that system stands for, and what it is costing the world in innocent victims. I went into Belgium to investigate conditions, and while there I had opportunities to talk with the leading German officials. Among others I had a talk with Governor-General von Bissing (who died three or four weeks ago at 72 or 73)… a man steeped in " the system," born and bred to the hardening of heart which that philosophy develops.
I said to him, "Governor, what are you going to do if England and France stop giving money to purchase food for this people?"
He answered, "We have got all that worked out for weeks, because we have expected this to break down at any time. Starvation will then grip these people in 30 to 60 days. Starvation is a compelling force, and we would use that force to compel the Belgian working-men -many of them very skilled-to go into Germany to replace the Germans, so that they could go to the front and fight the English and the French. As fast as our railway transportation could carry them, we would transport thousands of others, fit for agricultural work, across Europe into Mesopotamia, where we have huge irrigation works, and, with water, that land will blossom like arose.
"The weak, the old, and the young remaining, we would concentrate before the firing line, put firing squads back of them, and force them through that line, that the English and French could take care of their own people.''
All this was direct, frank reasoning. It meant that the German Government would use any force in the destruction of any people, not its own, to further its own ends.
I had never thought in such terms. I had read von Bernhardi and others, but I had not believed them; but the truth of it all began to dawn upon me.
After that some German officials asked if I would not go to Poland, as the situation there had got the best of them. There, some three millions of people would die of starvation and exposure if not fed between then and the next crop-last October. "If that thing goes on it will demoralize our troops," they said-again that practical reasoning.
I went into Poland under the guidance, and always in the company, of German officers-many of them high officers on the general staff. I briefly give you what I saw there, and again what that system stands for.
By the collapse of their great fortification at Lodz, the whole Russian line (300 miles long) collapsed; … it retreated through Russian Poland 230 miles, clear into Russia. I motored along those roads, two running toward Petrograd, and one toward Moscow. They were all in very much the same condition. The German officers and the Poles who were with me agreed that, in about six weeks' time, approximately one million people along this Moscow road were made homeless; of these at least four hundred thousand died in the flight along that road.
As I motored along that road, only a few weeks after that terrible retreat, I began to realize what had happened. Both sides of the road were completely lined for the whole 230 miles with mud-covered, rain-soaked clothing. The bones had been cleaned by the crows which are in that country by countless thousands. The Prussians had come along and gathered the larger bones, useful to them as phosphates and fertilizer. The finger bones and toe bones were still there with the rags. The little wicker baskets that hold the baby were there by hundreds upon hundreds. I started to count them for the first mile or two, but gave up because they were so many.
We saw no building in that whole 230 miles. All had been destroyed-nothing hut bare, black chimneys; no live stock-no farm implements.
I saw between fifty and sixty thousands, of the six or seven hundred thousand refugees, gathered about barracks hurriedly put up by the Germans. They were lying on the ground in broken families, with one starvation ration a day, dying of disease, and hunger, and exposure. They had not had their clothes off for weeks; buttons were gone, and their clothes had to be sewed on. There were no conveniences of life, and the filth was indescribable.
Going back to the cities where the destruction was not so awful, mothers and children were leaning against buildings or sitting on the sidewalks, rain-soaked, and too weak to take bread that might be offered them. All the wealthy people of Poland were giving everything they owned to save their nation.
One day a Pole, head of the Central Belief Committee, wealthy before the war, but who had given everything he possessed to save his people, showed me a proclamation of the German Governor-General, in Polish, which he translated for me. It made it a misdemeanor for any Pole having food to give it to any able-bodied Pole who refused to go into Germany to work. The "system" had put it up to each head of any family to go into voluntary slavery, knowing it would be to work in a German factory, sleep on the floor, and the money earned would be taken for the food he ate, leaving his family in starvation, and unable to hear from or communicate with them.
I went to the Governor, and asked him what this meant. He said, " I don't know ; I have to sign so many of these things. Go to the Governor-General of the Warsaw district; he will tell you."
I went there, in a rage. He told me these were the facts. I arose and said:"General, I cannot discuss this thing with you; but it is worse than anything I ever heard of. I did not suppose any civilized nation would be guilty of such a thing " ; and I started to go out.
He said, " Wait a minute; I want to explain this thing to you. We do not look at it as you do. Starvation is a great force, and if we can use it to the advantage of the German Government we are going to use it. Furthermore, this is a rich alluvial country. We have wanted it for a long time ; and if these people die off through starvation perhaps a lot of Germans will overflow and settle here and after the war, if we have to give up Poland, the liberty of Poland will be settled forever, because it will be a German province."
What is true in Poland is true in Serbia and Roumania. In Serbia, approximately three quarters of a million people have died miserably. In Roumania some six hundred thousand were murdered in cold blood by Turkish troops officered by Germans.
O reader, these are almost too painful scenes to recount, and you may justly ask, Why do it ? Well, just this-though painful in the extreme, it should be a solemn lesson taken to heart. You remember that only five years ago it was confidently affirmed by many intelligent, cultivated and influential people, that the age of wars was past in this civilized and progressive age; that present intelligence and culture would not permit it, and that all international differences would be settled by a court of arbitration in the Peace Palace at the Hague, prepared for this very purpose. A world-wide peace, with ever-increasing progress, development, affluence and a general uplift was the outlook-with God left out. Behold, how in one hour all this has crumbled ! The most "civilized " nations have used the most diabolical means by land, by sea, under the sea, and in the skies, wantonly to destroy foes and innocents alike ! !
God has been mocked, His Word denied or flouted by the very ones that had profited through the emancipating power of the truth, and God has withdrawn His restraining hand, leaving man to prove the bitterness of his own ways. Oh, that the afflicted nations might turn to Him with sackcloth and ashes !
Alas, the dream of a world-peace by human arrangements, by "democratizing" the world-not by turning to God-is yet held up as the encouraging and bright prospect " after this war." May God put forth His hand to stay the stream of blood and misery following :but, Christian, let us not be deceived; He who cannot lie has said, "As it was in the days of Noah . . . and as it was in the days of Lot . . . even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed " (Luke 17:26-30). Of the days of Noah we read, " The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence" (Gen. 6:u), and in all Sodom not ten righteous persons were found (Gen. 18 :32).
Let us then, in love to our fellow-men, like Noah, be "preachers of righteousness"-warning them of coming judgments, seeking to save them with fear, "pulling them out of the fire," whilst keeping ourselves in the love of God, and " looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life " (Jude 21-23).