Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 236, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1918 — Page 2

LIES OF THE HUN IN EVERY CORNER

Imperial Germany Spares No Community in U. S. PLANTING SEEDS OF KULTUR Dastardly Assault Is Under the Direction of a General Staff and Has Been Prepared With the Utmost Care. By HARVEY O’HIGGINb, Associate Chairman, Committee on Public Information, Washington, D. C. (This is the first of three articles by Mr. O'Higgins dealing with the propaganda of the enemy in our country.) Mr. Citizen, you are now on the firing line. Imperial Germany is not merely attacking on the western front. She is attacking in every community in the United States. Her assault is under the direction of the German general staff. It has been prepared as carefully as the strategy and tactics of a military drive. As in Russia and in Italy, so here also a campaign of German propaganda —a gas attack of poisonous lies and rumors and false imports—has been launched successfully and is now under way. The collapse of Russia was not a victory for German arms. It was a triumph of German propaganda. America is now the strongest enemy that Germany has. A weakening of our public morale is as necessary to German success as the weakening of Russia was. And the attempt to weaken us has already developed two main lines of movement. The first aims to destroy our unity of action with our allies by setting lis against the French, the British and the Japanese. The Second proposes to destroy our domestic unity by encouraging -among us every sort of class dissension, religious difference, racial prejudice and political quarrel. Slandering the French. The officials of the Red Cross report that many loyal mothers are refusing to let their daughters volunteer as nurses in France because of rumors of immoral conditions in the hospitals there. A detailed story has been circulated to the effect that 200 Red Cross nurses have recently been returned on a transport from abroad and secretly removed to maternity hospitals here as patients. There is not a word of truth in the story. It has been investigated by a federal grand jury in New York city and found to be false. German sympathizers caught circulating it have been interned. The nurses in service In our hospitals in France have the same discipline and protection that they have here-—and need it as little. The story has been invented to hamper the work, of the Red Cross and to prejudice us dgainst our French allies. A similar alm is evident in the reports of drunkenness immorality among our forces at the front. These charges, most circumstantially made, were even taken up by the national leaders of our prohibition societies and purity leagues, and an appeal was sent out to the readers of the religious press asking them to protest to President Wilson. The number of these protests showed the success of the slander. As a matter of fact, no liquor ration Is served to our troops either here or abroad. No army canteen sells alcoholic liquors. By General Pershing’s orders, our soldiers in Francis are forbidden “either to buy or to accept as gifts from the. inhabitants,” any “alcoholic beverages other than light wine or beer.” As there is little beer sold in France, General Pershing reports: “Men who drink are thus limited to the light native wine used by all French people. Even this is discouraged among our troops in every possible way. I hope to secure the cooperation of the French government to prevent the sale of all liquors and wines to our troops. Personally, I favor prohibition in the army, but it is impracticable and inadvisable to issuej orders that cannot be enforced without the co-operation of the French government.” Slandering Our Soldiers. The charge of drunkenness among our expeditionary forces is a proGerman lie designed to alarm the mothers and fathers of the boys who have gone to France. The stories of immorality consequent upon drunkenness are equally baseless. When the recruits for the National army were first assembled in our cantonments, the medical examiners sent as many as 400 out of every 1,000 men to the hospitals to be treated for venereal diseases. The hospital admission rate fdt venereal diseases in those camps has since been as low as 64.4 per 1,000, and the rate for the men in our expeditionary forces in France has been as low as 44.2 per 1,000. That is to say, the statistics of the surgeon general’s office show that our soldiers in France have been almost ten times as free from the effects of immorality as - the same sort of men were when they were first drafted These slanders upon the nurses and -upon the troops are typical of the work of the German general staff. It has been their policy in their campaigns of propaganda to circulate in an enemy country the falsehoods that most appeal to that country’s prejudices. America, in Its Ignorance of all France, outside of the tourist haunts

of Paris, is easily imposed upon with stories of French vice. The German propagandist knows that. He is planning to take advantage of it for his own purposes. He is making a drive upon the sentiments and emotions of American women just as he at ,first attacked the susceptibilities of the Italian wopien behind the lines in preparing the way for the Italian defeat. How well he is succeeding in America is shown by a passage In that appeal for a protest to President Wilson which was printed in the religious press. It pointed out: “Throughout this country a feeling of bitterness dangerous in the extreme is arising and gazing With menacing eyes toward France. The mothers who have reared sons strong and clean, and who have, given them with glad, aching hearts—women who have loved France and glorified her —are now muttering that our boys are wanted for the profits of their debauchery and not to take their deaths in strength and cleanliness.” Such mothers are the victims of a German falsehood. So is the writer who thus described them and protested against the “debauchery” of their soldier sons. The reports of immoral conditions in France and the campaigns of protest against those conditions are equally the work of German agents, assisted by the prejudiced credulity of their American victims. Mr. Citizen, the committee on public information wishes to warn you against these snares. There will be more of them. In Italy anonymous letters were sent to the soldiers from their homes accusing their wives of infidelity. Our nfllltary censorship prevents such tactics among our men, but similar impostures will doubtless be attempted. Already forged letters pretending to be from soldiers in France have been found in the lobbies of New York theaters, as if accidentally dropped there by the recipients. The letters are always in the angular handwriting of persons accustomed to using German script. So far they have contained little but alarming falsehoods about the alleged slaughter of American regiments. Slandering the British. In order to set us against our British allies, several sorts of “whispering propaganda” are being used. There is the story that American soldiers are reeling around the streets of London, drunk. It-has been disproved. There is the charge that while we are stinting ourselves to save grain the English are using it to make whisky—although we are saving and shipping chiefly wheat, which is little used in distilling, and the figures from England show that the English liquor traffic has been decreased by the war almost as much as ours. And there is the report that millions of British soldiers are held in England while the allies are “doing their fighting for them” —a falsehood that is sufficiently discounted by the fact that the British empire has 7,500,000 men in the field and a half million in her fleet; that of the British troops in France 70 per cent are English, 8 per cent Scotch, 6 per cent Irish, and 16 per cent Canadians, Australians, etc.; and that the casualties among these troops have been 76 per cent English, 10 per cent Scotch, 6 per cent Irish, and 8 per cent Canadian, Australian, etc. The German mischief-makers who first supplied arms for the revolt in Ulster against home rule, and subsequently shipped arms for the revolt of the home rulers —these same promoters of disunity are now furnishing the Irish in America with any story, any argument, any slander that can arouse anti-English prejudice among us. On the Pacific coast, in the same way, they are rattling the dry bones of the yellow peril. The average organ of publicity that was pro-German before our declaration of war, no matter how pro-American it now pretends to be, almost invariably uses the antiBritish and the anti-Japanese appeals. And just as the Zimmerman note tried to unite Mexico find Japan against us, so the enemy of our unity alternates denunciations of the yellow peril with appeals for a declaration of war against Mexico. Should Be on Guard.

The German sympathizer who tells you the story of how a discharged Japanese servant boasted that the Japanese would soon “own America,” invariably couples it with a lying account of how all Washington Is saying that “the next war will be with Great Britain about the Panama canal.” Ou the Italian front, before the successful German drive, counterfeits of Milan newspapers were circulated, containing accounts of how bread riots had been suppressed in north Italian towns by British soldiers imported for that purpose, after Italian had refused to fire upon their own people. All over Italy the argument was used that the nation was merely “pulling England’s chestnuts out of the fire.” The same argument is now doing duty here, in spite of the fact that the United States only Went to war in self-defense after we had endured every form of German outrage and injustice and exhausted every means of peaceful appeal. . Many of the agents of this sort of propaganda in America, both publishers .and “whisperers,” are protected by their American citizenship and by the traditional freedom of speech which our laws permit. The government has no power to reach them. They are often the innocent victims of guiltier minds. It Is only possible to warn the public of the Infection which they spread, and to mark them as “carriers” of that German propaganda bacillus which completely enervated the strength of Russia and so nearly broke down the Italian power of self-defense. .

THE EVENING RENSSELAER, IND-

SELECTING SEED CORN IN AUTUMN

Tremendous Loss to Farmers and Country Due to Planting of Inferior Seed - ■ FIRST CLASS REQUIREMENTS Ears Taken From Highest-Yielding Rows Produce Better Than Those Taken From Poorer-Yielding Rows—Test Each Ear. (Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) There is each spring a scarcity of good seed corn. This condition is all the more regrettable, because it need not exist; and it is much more serious than commonly supposed, because many do not realize fully the tremendous loss to themselves and the country due to the planting of inferior seed. A full stand of plants may be obtained from inferior seed, but the yield will not be the best possible. The loss is due to delay or negligence. It can be prevented by the selection of seed corn in the autumn. , ? M To be first class, seed niust be: 1. Of .a variety well adapted to the seasonal and soil conditions where it is to be planted. 2. Grown on productive plants of a productive variety, showing all the desirable characteristics. 3. Well matured, and preserved from ripening time till planting time in such a manner as to retain its full vigor. Three Important Requirements. The importance of the three requirements just enumerated has been dem-

A Happy Corn Club Boy With a Bushel of Selected Seed.

onstrated experimentally. The results of the tests, given briefly, are as follows: 1. For a series of five years, 12 varieties were tested in ten Northern states, equivalent lots of seed being used in each state. Varieties that produced most in some states were among the poorest in others. 2. Seed ears taken from the highestyielding rows of ear-to-row breeding plats fiave repeatedly produced better than seed ears taken from pooreryielding rows. Seed ears from the bestproducing stalks found in a general field produced more than seed ears taken without considering the productiveness of the parent stalks. As the result of selection work of this kind, average acre yields on some farms have been increased 18 per cent in a decade.

3. Four bushels of ears were divided into two equal parts, one part being well taken care of and the other placed In a barn as corn is ordinarily cribbed. The well-preserved seed gave a yield on poor soil 12 per cent higher than the poorly-preserved and 27 per cent higher on fertile soil, notwithstanding the fact that both lots of seed germinated equally well. Prevention Is Best. Seed corn that matures normally, and has been preserved-properly will grow satisfactorily. It Is very poor management to neglect proper preservation and then spend time in the spring separating by germination tests those ears that have been badly damaged from those that have been slightly damaged. Prevention is better than cure, and in this case a cure is impossible. If it is found necessary to plant seed the vitality of which is at all doubtful, each ear should be tested separately and only those planted which germinate perfectly. If the only seed available for planting is Inferior In quality and vitality, it should be planted thick in order to counterbalance imperfect germination and to approximate perfect stands. Poor stands are a frequent source of poor yields. In nearly every locality good farmers usually, agree regarding the stand that approximates the optimum for normal soil and seasonal conditions. Stands markedly inferior to the optimum give an increase In size of ears, but a decrease in total yield. Loss may be sustained from too thick a stand, which causes a decrease in size of ears and in total yields. Prepare In Fall. Autumn is the time to prepare for a profitable corn crop the following sea-

son. Dropping all other business at corn-ripening time and selecting, drying and storing at least enough seed to meet the requirements of two years* planting will insure a seed supply for the second succeeding year in the event of crop failure the first year. Selecting seed corn requires the corn grower’s entire attention. If he will get the very best that is to be had and preserve it well,.his increased yields will return him more profit than any other work he can do on his farm. In 13 years’ investigations conducted upon Scioto river bottom soil near Piketon, 0., with Woodburn White Dent, United States selection 77, the yield was raised from an average of 63 bushels of dry shelled corn for the period from 1901 to 1907 to an average of 75 bushels for the period from 1907 to 1913. The principal Influence producing this increase in yield was the selection and care of seed corn. Ears to Select. As soon as the crop ripens, the first step is to go through the field with seed-picking bags, and husk the ears from the stalks that have produced the most corn without having had any special advantages as to space, moisture or fertility. The large ears on stalks standing singly with an unusual amount of space around them should be avoided. Preference should be given the plants that have produced most heavily in competition ■ with a full stand of less productive plants. In all localities the inherent tendency of the plant to produce heavily of sound, dry, shelled corn is of most importance. The same day seed com is gathered the husked ears should be put in a dry place with a free circulation of air and placed in such position that the ears do not touch each other. This is the only safe procedure. Good seed is repeatedly ruined because of the belief that it is already dry enough when gathered and that the precaution mentioned above is unnecessary. In localities where weevils and grain moths injure stored grain, the thoroughly dry ears should be stored in very tight mouse-proof receptacles, with one pound of moth balls or naphthalene inclosed for each bushel of corn. This quantity tightly inclosed with the corn will prevent damage from these Insects and will not injure the seed.

SUITABLE TIME FOR HARVESTING PEANUTS

Save Maximum Amount of Food by Gathering When Mature. Vines Should Be Stacked Before Leaves Become Dry and Have Fallen Off —Use Care to Prevent Crop From Molding. (Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) Harvesting peanuts before they are mature, as is often the case among inexperienced growers, is responsible for considerable loss in the yield of Marketable peanuts. A few of the peanuts are very likely to mature and sprout during rainy weather before the crop Is ready to be dug. The vines assume a yellowish appearance when the crop is mature, which is usually, btit not always, a good indication as to the proper time for harvesting. This, together with the turning brown and falling off of the lower leaves, and the plump appearance of the pods should be the guide in determining the maturity of the crop. After the crop has been dug the vines should be stacked before the leaves become dry and have fallen off, and special care should be given to

Building Stack of Peanut Vines.

prevent the peanuts from molding. The stacks should be small and placed around poles provided with two crosspieces nailed to the pole ten to twelve Inches from the ground to support the vines. After curing In stacks for a few weeks peanuts can be hauled to the barn and stored without danger of loss. ' ’ •Some growers who find It difficult to obtain poles rake the peanuts into windrows with a hay rake and then Stack "them like hay. This method requires a longer time for proper curing, and is successful only when small stacks are made and the peanuts are quite dry before being stacked. If the peanuts become wet they are seriously damaged for commercial purposes, as the pods will become discolored.

What Can I Do?

By CHARLES J. ROSEBAULT

of DtaßgflonSM

Here’are a few answers to this question, which has been worrying the members of the home army ever since Uncle Sam decided to make a stand for human "decency. They are answers dictated by Uncle Sam himself through his chosen agents In the various activities he has felt It necessary to take on for the period of the war. Study them carefully, all ’ you good soldiers over here. Commit to memory, each of you, those which fit your particular case and cherish them as special gifts from the great god Opportunity. They will tell you how you can make good In your sphere. Even as the man "over there” is expected to be (and will be) alert for the opportunity to do his part with efficiency and dispatch,, so you have the chance to do yours. Prompt response to commands from headquarters by the soldiers of the home army are as Important as similar response by .the boys in France. Uncle Sam’s Call: Wife, Mother, Let all your messages “over there” be of good cheer only; men who worry can’t fight at their best. If the fortunes of war make a .cripple of your loved One, repress your emotions. Don’t ask him to come home and be cuddled —to .your and his everlasting regret later on. Remember that he might have been killed. Determine that his remaining years shall be useful and happy —Uncle Sam stands ready -to make them so. He has brought together all kinds of experts to train your boy so that he may return to civil life not a useless idler but prepared to meet any competition for the job he Is best fitted to do. Have you a baby? Then get In touch with the children’s bureau, department of labor. This arm of the government Is thinking of the future as well as the present. It wants to cut down the mortality among infants, which is shockingly large. It has assembled a vast amount of-val-uable Information which It Is anxious to Impart to the mothers of the country. Ask for the circulars telling about the care of babies. Employer of Labor — Don’t compete with Uncle Sam.

The Contortionist of Berlin

By H. P. HOLT

of The Vigilantes

Baron Von Wurst lighted a large cigar with an expression of satisfaction, stroked his paunch, now, alas, somewhat thinner than of yore, and swung round in his chair to the heap of freshly that lay on his desk—reports from' trusty agents in various enemy countries. His little pig-like eyes glinted with Joy. „ Baron Von Wurst was the Hun arch-press-agent, and he was just about to compose the weekly summary of “facts” to be scattered broadcast among the press of Germany. There was something in his nature, which always made It a peculiar pleasure to perform this task, for It needed much imagination, and imagination was at a low ebb in the Fatherland. Moreover, it had won for him the coveted iron cross. He took up the first typewritten slip, and read: American troops numbering 200,000 are sailing In the next three weeks. Their strength in France will surely reach two million before winter. Countless

more training. / “Schmidt,” said the baron, to a redfaced secretary in uniform. “Take this down.” Then he dictated: The alarm in France Increases daily as the promised hordes from America fall to appear. Half the Yankees opposed to us have already been wiped off the map, their casualties far exceeding the number of fresh arrivals. Deceiving Their People. Baron Von Wurst took the next slip. It was from a most excellent spy in France. The master press-agent scowled as he read: Meat Is much more plentiful here. The populace are wildly elated over recent allied victories. The troops all seem supremely confluent of ultimate success. “Ready, Schmidt?” The baron puckered his brows, and continued to scowl for a moment. Then, with Inspiration, came a grim smile. He dictated : . - Once more history shows the pleasure-loving Parisians to be subsisting largely on rats and offal. The shlqlng sword of Germany has brought them almost to # their knees through starvation. Mutinies In the French army are now a daily recurrence, for those soldiers know, In spite of the lies thrust upon them, that everywhere along the line German might Is triumphant The baron, who had lunched with • friend off a substitute sausage, grimpeed as he read another message from America: ! The 1918 harvest In the United

He needs all the workers he can get. Likewise gll the materials which enter Into the service of war. Don’t, advertise for a hundred men when you only require 30. At least 70 will waste their time answering your call, and time is no more to be wasted than materials these days. Get in touch with the war Industries board, or the United States employment bureau (branches everywhere) and find out just what 1 the government expects of you. Employe*-* Stick to your job. Shifting ate this time dislocates Industry, wastes, time and money and does you harm. In the long run. Only when Uncle Sam-calls have you the moral right to throw over the task In hand--Don’t slack and don’t get extravagant because you are earning more than formerly. Remember the man “over there.” Uncle Sam can’t keephim supplied as he should be with; food, ammunition and equipment If you are not more economical than, ever (see the appeal not to wastefurther on). The Alien — If you want this country to be thebest ever—best governed and best to live in for yourself and your children —become a citizen, Inform yourself about our laws and our Ideals. Thenr you can exert an intelligent Influence toward improving conditions. Your vote will be as important and far-reaching as that of the man or woman whose ~ great-great-great-grandfather arrived in the Mayflower. Manufacturer — Convert your business as speedily as possible Into one of the many Industries needed for the war. TheseIs no limit to the demand for theabilities of the successful maker of things. It would be a crime to de- ' vote these to nonessentials when theneed is so great in the one real jobof the whole American people. Everybody— Don’t waste —time, money, food or anything. Remember that every dollar spent unnecessarily takes somebody’s time, somebody’s labor, somebody’s materials which Uncle Sam can use. It makes no difference hour much money you have in your pockets. It’s not the price that counts. There Is just so much of everythinguseful —fodd, cloth, leather and metals, just to mention a few Items — and Uncle Sam needs It all. Put your spare money Into Liberty bonds and War Savings stamps. You will be helping the government to help the boys at the front—and you’ll be better off later on.

States will exceed anything ever known. Ships are being launched with such amazing rapidity that there will soon be quite enough to carry grain across the Atlantic. The baron’s wry face flushed with anger. Was not he one of the many who had ben deceived by Von Tlrpitz? He puffed out his cheeks. Fortunate It Is Not True. A mysterious grain disease (he dlctatejj) has spread with lightning rapidity throughout the wheatgrowing ureas of America, and In spite of assurances to the coirtrary, we know that the Yankees will not have enough grain for their own wants. American prisons are full of men and women who have dared to break the regulatlons which allow each person four ounces of bread a day. Theship builders, who became tqo weak to work on this allowance, have been given one ounce extra. The new ships launched, hastily built for submarine fodder, are now pronounced hopelessly defective, and cannot be used. ‘ The real message fluttered from the* table to the floor, and Schmidt stooped to pick It up. He had never been al-' lowed to see such things, and glanced at the slip curiously. “It Is verboten!” declared the baron., snatching the paper. “Herr" baron,” said Schmidt, “surely these American swine must see now ihat we have complete mastery.” Baron Von VJJurst coughed. “Ah! If they all had as much senseas you,” he said, gazing at the crown-prlnce-llke skull of Schmidt. “But we will teach them with our shining swordDidn’t some one once say, thoughthat the pen Is mightier than the sword, Schmidt? I—l think there must be some truth In that. Yes, yes, Schmidt, get busy. The newspapers of Germany are waiting for my summary of the news.”

CALL FROM OVER THERE

By JAMES W. WISE,

of the Vigilantes. You’ve sent us here across the waves. To make the whole world free. To keep our nation’s honor bright. To fight for Liberty. « ? s _ We went and we were' glad to go. To fight—perhaps to die— To pay our debt -to noble France. Democracy, our cry. We ask no praise nor honor, No riches and no fame, Our hearts are In the fight for truth, But—back us in the game. You’ve sent us here, to fight your fight* Though it be ours, too. We'll do our bit out at the front— The rest is up to you.

His Circumambulatory Endeavor.

“Professor Pate is somewhat absent" minded, isn’t he?” '< “Oh, yes. The other day I saw him attempting to enter a bank bplldlng by way of a revolving door. He was cogitating over some weighty matter in his mind, and walked into the door and around and through and out again where he had started, six times before discovering that he was not making any particular advancement tn the way be wished to go.”—Kansas City Star.