Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1917 — The Sowers of Salt. [ARTICLE]

The Sowers of Salt.

Chicago Herald. Nothing brings out more clearly the coldly calculated and remorseless character of the detsruction wrought by the withdrawing Germans in northern -France that this simple statement: “They sowed salt at the roots of the vines!” _ It was not enough to destroy noble houses, to cut down fruit trees and tear them from walls. tit did not sufficiently conform to proper ideas of strategy to raze whole villages,, leaving their defenseless inhabitants naked to the winds and rains and storms of heaven. It was not enough to make a desert and call it strategy. Something more was needed to reach the full height of the ideals of a wanton and calculating militarism. A more striking demonstration of its infinite capacity for detail was ca!l6d for to glut its pride in itself. A new evidence of naked brutality was require dto shock the conscience of the civilized world. So they sowed salt at the foots of the vines! There is in those simple words, which represent a mere cabled statement of fact, a biblical and significant ln Gtem-we seem w hear **the- future sitting in judgment and condemning the men and the caste who have done these outrageous things. We catch glimpses through the veil of the years to be of the shadowy figures of great prophets warning peoples against the ideals and deeds that lead to shame and destruction. We can even hear in them the echo of the voice of the German people themselves, who must some day awakn to a full realization of the nature of the militaristic ideals they have too long and too willingly endured. In the days when Hohenzollern and military caste alike are toppled fronp their place of power and pride Germans may write their epitaph in these rememberable words. , The men who gave the orders to sow salt at the roots of the vines ih that district of northern France may have sown it at the roots of other vines they recked not of. Surely it fell at the root of the last surviving vine of possible respect for the ideals and conduct of the German war machine in the world today. Let us hope it also fell on the matted and poisonous roots of militarism itself.