The question is, how long will it take to convince ignorant, weak-kneed and pro-German boards of education in the United States that it is folly, and an utter waste of good money and time, to teach to American youth the language of our deadliest enemy, the enemy that would tear the very heart out of America if it could? How long, oh Lord! how long will it take the American people to WAKE UP?

But wait! A year from now, through the counting of their dead and the carrying of their wounded, the work of the Hun will make an impression on the sleepy ones. Twelve months from this date loyalty to the flag will not be regarded as lightly by some people as it now is.

We will see, a year from now, where the German language will be in America.

CHAPTER VIII

The Dangers of an Inconclusive Peace

"We must not look for permanent peace as a result of this war. Heaven defend Germany from that!"-O. A. H. Schmitz, in "The Real Germany: The Regeneration through the War," p. 19.

On Jan. 8, 1918, the newspapers of the United States published a dispatch from Switzerland as quoted below, under the caption:

Urges German Seizure of All Occupied Land.

"No Consideration of Humanity" Possible, Says Von Lieb

Zurich, Jan. 8.-" We must recognize only one principle, that might is right, and must know neither sentiment nor consideration of humanity or compassion," said Gen. von Lieb in a speech before the German Conservative Congress at Halle, Prussia, in which he declared that Germany must have Courland, Belgium and northern France.

"We will incorporate Courland, bringing in sixty million Russians, and the Slav nightmare will then ride us no longer," he declared.

"We must have Belgium and northern France," he continued. "The curse of God is upon the French. The Portuguese possessions must disappear.

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France must pay until bled white.

"You may call me Jingo, Chauvinist or anything you like, but we must have a strong peace."

The American people are persistently, and even viciously, prone to be too generous, too magnanimous, and to "chide mildly the erring" even when the erring deserves the swift kick into outer darkness. It looks

as if there are more soft-hearted people in America per square mile than in any other country on earth except Russia, where the "soldiers" once voted in the trenches on attacking or not attacking their foes.

Had Sir Roger Casement come up against the United States instead of England, we never would have had the sand to hang the wretch; not in a thousand years. Will we ever muster up enough courage to shoot even one spy, one bomber, one factory burner, or I. W. W. prophet of sabotage?

For every black-hearted murderer that we do finally manage to convict, there always is some one to protest: "I don't believe in capital punishment." One governor of Kansas was so shamelessly derelict in his duty that several murderers were not hanged because he whiningly insisted that "There is no law to compel me to sign a death warrant" Can you beat that?

As soon as our boys in France begin to go over the top, and the casualty lists and the wounded begin to come back, all the traitors in America will intensify the howl for "Peace! peace!" and "Peace, at any price," just as the northern copperheads did during our Civil War.

The President made a bad mistake when he said "We have no quarrel with the people of Germany!" To-day his enemies and our enemies in the "People's Council" are using that speech to plague him. Every book that thus far has been written about the interior of Germany by eye-witnesses proclaims on every page the President's error. Let him who doubts it read any one of the following authors:

Ambassador Gerard, "My Four Years in Germany." E. T. Curtin, "The Land of Deepening Shadows."