in
every man and woman, and especially in woman with the maternal instinct
characteristic of her sex, than to give a harbor of refuge to the
helpless. All nations have respected this instinctive feeling as one of
the redeeming traits of human nature and the history of war, at least in
modern times, can be searched in vain for any instance in which anyone,
especially a woman, has been condemned to death for yielding to the
humanitarian impulse of giving temporary refuge to a fugitive soldier.
Such an act is neither espionage nor treason, as those terms have been
ordinarily understood in civilized countries.

It is true, as suggested by a few in America who sought to excuse the
Cavell crime, that Mrs. Surratt was tried, condemned and executed
because she had permitted the band of assassins, whose conspiracy
resulted in the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted murder of
Secretary Seward, to hold their meetings in her house; but the
difference between this conscious participation in the assassination of
the head of the State, in a period of civil war, and the humanitarian
aid which Miss Cavell gave to fugitive soldiers to save them from
capture is manifest. I am assuming that Miss Cavell did give such
protection to her compatriots, for all accessible information supports
this view, and if so, however commendable her motive and heroic her
conduct, she certainly was guilty of an infraction of military law,
which justified some punishment and possibly her forcible detention
during the period of the war.

To regard her execution as an ordinary incident of war is an affront to
civilization, and as it is symptomatic of the Prussian occupation of
Belgium and not a sporadic incident, it acquires a significance which
justifies a full recital of this black chapter of Prussianism. It
illustrates the reign of terror which has existed in Belgium since the
German occupation.

When the German Chancellor made his famous speech in the Reichstag on
August 4th, 1914, and admitted at the bar of the world the crime which
was then being initiated, he said:

"The wrong--I speak openly--that we are committing we will endeavor
to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached."

Within a few weeks the military goal was reached by the seizure of
practically all of Belgium and by the voluntary surrender of Brussels to
the invader, and since then, for a period of fourteen months, the
Belgian people have been subjected t