Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 197, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1917 — Linking the Deity With The Crimes of Germany. [ARTICLE]

Linking the Deity With The Crimes of Germany.

Lafayette Journal. The Kaiser loses no opportunity to drag the name of the Deity into al his damnable machinations. “May God help us further,” he telegraphed the empress in connection with the occupation of Riga. “Onward with God,” was his admonition to Prince Leopold in his message of congratulation. It is nauseating to such degree that one marvels that God does not strike this arch blasphemer dead. Two reasons suggest themselves as responsible for his continual linking of the Almighty with his feats of arms. He is without doubt a religious bigot and evidently sufficiently shrewd to realize the psychological effect upon the simple minds of his people, who are manifesting nearly if not as much fanaticism as has ever been attributed to the Turks. We are making a prodigious effort to draw a fine line of distinction between the German people and the nfllitarists of the empire, but the distinction is not as clear as one could wish. In the beginning the German people approved this war, and in a large measure they still approve. If there is a sentiment to the contrary it is not yet widespread nor sufficiently strong to bring about the desired result. You cannot overturn in a single night the teachings and beliefs of years. You cannot.wipe these things out of German minds as you would erase an offensive caricature from the slate of a school boy. They have been taught that might is right, that Germany is superior to any other natjon, that obedience is a virtue; they believe implicitly and obstanately that the world would be better off if it were under the control of a government such as they are familiar with, and the kaiser is shrewd rather than crazy when he links this belief with the commonly accepted notion that the Lord is on the side of a just cause. ■ But when we attempt to visualize ;he horde of nameless children that lave been forced into the arms of ;he women of France and Belgium by fiends in German uniforms, when we attempt to comprehend the anguish of the innocent victims of Teutonic passion, ravished, mutilated, naked, and mercifully permitted to die after their awful experiences; when we ponder the degree of misery tha"t has been inflicted upon the world, when we read of the hellish manner in which the very land itself has been devastated, we are forced to wonder why a righteous God permits the author of it all to mingle His name with the boastful vaporings of this private secretary of Satan.