um to Germany? Had she challenged Germany? Was she
preparing to make war on Germany? Had she inflicted any wrong upon
Germany which the Kaiser was bound to redress? She was one of the most
unoffending little countries in Europe. ["Hear, hear!"] There she
was--peaceable, industrious, thrifty, hard working, giving offense to
no one. And her cornfields have been trampled, her villages have been
burned, her art treasures have been destroyed, her men have been
slaughtered--yea, and her women and children too. [Cries of "Shame!"]
Hundreds and thousands of her people, their neat, comfortable little
homes burned to the dust, are wandering homeless in their own land. What
was their crime? Their crime was that they trusted to the word of a
Prussian King. [Applause.] I do not know what the Kaiser hopes to
achieve by this war. [Derisive laughter.] I have a shrewd idea what he
will get; but one thing he has made certain, and that is that no nation
will ever commit that crime again.

"The Right to Defend Its Homes."

I am not going to enter into details of outrages. Many of them are
untrue, and always are in a war. War is a grim, ghastly business at best
or at worst, ["Hear, hear!"] and I am not going to say that all that has
been said in the way of outrages must necessarily be true. I will go
beyond that, and I will say that if you turn two millions of
men--forced, conscript, compelled, driven--into the field, you will
always get among them a certain number who will do things that the
nation to which they belong would be ashamed of. I am not depending on
these tales. It is enough for me to have the story which Germans
themselves avow, admit, defend and proclaim--the burning and massacring,
the shooting down of harmless people. Why? Because, according to the
Germans, these people fired on German soldiers. What business had German
soldiers there at all? ["Hear, hear!" and applause.] Belgium was acting
in pursuance of the most sacred right, the right to defend its homes.
But they were not in uniform when they fired! If a burglar broke into
the Kaiser's Palace at Potsdam, destroyed his furniture, killed his
servants, ruined his art treasures--especially those he had made
himself, [laughter and applause], and burned the precious manuscripts of
his speeches, do you think he would wait until he got into uniform
before he shot him down? [Laughter.] They were dealing with
those who had broken into their household. ["Hear, hear!"] But the
p