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10 THE FATHERLA ND
THE FATHERLAND
Fair Play for
Germany and Austria-Hungary
Edited by
GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK
FREDERICK F. SCHRADER
A weekly published and owned by The Fatherland Cor oration. 1123
Broadway, New York City. Telephone, Farragut 9777. a dress,
Viereck, New York. President, George Sylvester Viereck; Vice-President,
Hayo Hans I-Iinrichr Treasurer, Curt . Reisinger; Asst. Treasurer,
Stake; Secretary, A. M. Grill Terms of Subscription,
postage, in the United States and Mexico, 52.00 per year. ‘In
Canada, $2.25 per year; $1.25 for six months. Subscription to al foreign
countries within the Postal Union, $2.25 per year. Single copies, 5 cents.
Newsdealers and Agents throughout the countr supglied by The Inter-
national News Company. Manuscripts, addresse to .t e Editor, if accom-
Eanied by return postage, and found unavailable. will be returned. c
ditor, however, accepts no responsibility for unsolicited contributions.
European Representative, LOUIS VIERECK, Suedwestkorso 8, Berlin-
Friedenau. .
Copyright, 1915, by The Fatherland Cor oration. Entered at the Post
Omce, New York, N. Y., as Second Class atter.
including
THE ENGLISH NOTE
IN the British reply of March 13 Sir Edward Grey tells the
United States: “There can be no universal rule based on
considerations of morality and humanity.” And this from
the Machiavellian statesman who wastes words in recounting
evidences of German barbarism in war, about the laying of mines,
treatment of prisoners, bombardment of undefended places on
the English coast and the dropping of bombs.
Contrary, then, to all “universal rules based on considerations
of morality and humanity,” England administers another snub
to the United States and boldly announces that she intends to
paralyze $4,000,000,000 (four thousand millions of dollars) worth
of American foreign trade.
Why? Because supplies may reach Germany, and under that
defiance of “all considerations of humanity and morality” she
purposes to starve all the women, children, old men and invalids
in the German Empire.
The seas are hers, and she can do with them as she likes. One
international law after another has she violated, set aside her
own precedents and added to the contraband list, cottonseed oil
and all cottonseed oil products, wool, woolen and worsted yarns,
tin, chloride of tin, tin ore, castor oil, paratiin, wax, copper,
iodine, lubricants, hides and all kinds of leather suitable for
military equipment, ammonia and its salts, aniline and its com-
pounds, etc.
From New Orleans, Savannah, Houston, Port Arthur, Galves-
ton and other Southern ports, the United States has shipped
monthly about $1,800,000 worth of cottonseed oil and $2,500,000
worth of cottonseed oil cake and meal alone. At her pleasure
England says we cannot ship the products of our farms and
plantations because Germany has attacked her with submarines.
Truly may we say with Dr. L. S. Rowe, professor of inter-
national law in the University of Pennsylvania: “In issuing her
orders in Council Great Britain has lost her greatest national
opportunity. Instead of giving the world.her assurance that she
will and would remain the champion of law and order, she has
dealt a serious blow to the existing system of international law.
The duty of the United States in the present crisis is clear and
unmistakable. We owe it not merely to our own natural in-
terests, but to the large interests involved in the maintenance of
law, to take a definite stand against this attempt to destroy those
principles of international law which have been obtained only
after long and arduous struggle.”
We see no such protest in the New York press, except in the
American and World. In the absence of its Scotch editor, the
Pulitzer paper fairly upheld the American principle of fair trade
and an open sea. The rest searched for precedents to justify
England and France, as usual betraying the American people in
the service of the International Pirate. A different tonc per-
vades thc columns of the lV:ishington Post: -
“Great Britain claims the right to kill American com-
merce. The United States must deny that claim and totally
annul it, even if it must go to war. The American govern-
ment does not deserve the name, and it does not deserve the
respect of the American people, if it will not assert and
defend their rights. The sure way to stir up war between
this country and Great Britain is to stand by while the
British navy kills of? American commerce. The people of
this nation will reach the point where they will sweep aside
the administration that fails to defend them, and they will
go to war to protect their right to carry on commerce, which
means their right to live.”
An equally scathing arraignment of England was telegraphed
the Hearst papers by Hearst himself.
We have shown that England's complaint against Germany
is unfounded. It was England that first mined the North Sea
and practically closed it to commerce. Germany retaliated by
carrying the war to the English coast. It used mines and sub-
marines. England has two submarines to Germany's one, but
she cannot use them. She dare not. But she turns her cruisers
into privateers and terrorizes the ocean routes of neutral traffic,
because there the German submarines cannot reach her.
She complains of German mine-laying, yet Amsterdam, under
date of March 16, reports that since the outbreak of the war,
375 mines washed ashore on the Dutch coast out of a total
of 397 were English mines. She complains of Germany drop-
ping bombs from aircraft and killing non-combatants, yet on
March 19 we read that aviators dropped bombs on Sclilettstadt
in Alsace, hitting a lady in a ladies’ seminary, killing two
children and wounding ten. She complains of unsportsman-
like warfare, yet as late as March 8 we read of the English
steamer Prexrident Bllll.'.'(.’ arriving in the harbor of Rotterdam
flying the Dutch flag and her own name painted over. As late
as March 17 we read the statement of a wounded officer of the
German cruiser Dresden wired the New York Time: from Val-
paraiso:
“Early Sunday morning we were anchored about a third of
a mile from the beach with empty coal bunkers, and in view of
the superiority of the enemy (three to one-Ed.) the commander
ordered us to abandon the ship so that she might be blown up.
While the boats of the Dresden were making for the shore,
the English opened a violent fire on these boats. Most of
the wounded received their injuries in that way. Some Eng-
lish sailors said that their ships kept up a continuous fire,
in which all the ships took part.” That is English chiv:tlry--
firing on open boats from three warships because deprived of
her preyl .
She complains that Germany shelled undefended places like
Scarborough, VVhitby, Yarmouth, etc., yet we have the lie given
it by Prof. J. H; Morgan, of University College, London, one of
the highest authorities on international law, who, in an article
in the London Daily News of August 17, disproved this conten-
tion and declared the bombardment of such places legitimate:
“Everything depends on what is meant by ‘undefendcd.’ I am
afraid London would not be immune, nor would l.Veymouth,
nor would Tynemouth. A place is not necessarily ‘undcfended’
merely because it is not fortified. If it contains a depot of arms,
a naval or military establishment, or even workshops or plant
utilizable for military purposes its immunity is at an end."
The reply of England is one web of deceits and subtcrfuges.
Sir Edward Grey is not aware that independent American in-
Vesflgations have long disproved the charges contained in his
note to the State Department. He thinks he controls the news
channels and we are in ignorance of the truth. But he misjudges
the temper of the American people. They will be heard from
sooner or later.