The Contributors' Column--October Atlantic

As Atlantic readers already know, Vernon Kellogg, a member of the faculty of Leland Stanford University, who filled an important position in the Commission for Relief in Belgium, was for months a sort of informal ambassador to the German Military Command in Flanders and Northern France. During this time he met on terms of familiarity some of the most notable personalities of the invading forces. The fruits of these contacts he gives us in his paper in this month’s Atlantic, as well as in ‘ Headquarters Nights,’ published in August. Concerning this latter article Colonel Roosevelt, recently speaking at the Harvard Club of New York, said: —

‘ One of the most graphic pictures of the German attitude, the attitude which has rendered this war inevitable, is contained in Vernon Kellogg’s “ Headquarters Nights.” It is a convincing, and an evidently truthful, exposition of the shocking, the unspeakably dreadful moral and intellectual perversion of character which makes Germany at present a menace to the whole civilized world. The man who reads Kellogg’s sketch and yet fails to see why we are at war, and why we must accept no peace save that of overwhelming victory, is neither a good American nor a true lover of mankind.’

In connection with the subject of the Belgian deportations, touched on by Professor Kellogg in this month’s paper, the following memorial, sent to Governor General von Bissing about December 1, 1916, by a group of prominent burghers of Antwerp, and here given for the first time to the American public, will be of the deepest interest to our readers: —

To His Excellency Baron von Bissing, Governor of Belgium, in Brussels:
Your Excellency,
By virtue of an Order of the Military Governor of Antwerp, rendered in accordance with the instructions of the German General Government in Belgium, dated November 2, 1916, our citizens without work whose names are on the lists of the Registry Office (Meldeamt) are instructed to present themselves immediately at the Southern Railway Station. From there they will be transported, by force if necessary, into Germany, where they will be compelled to take up work which will be assigned to them. The same measures have been taken in the rest of the country. Without having committed crime, and without trial, thousands of our free citizens are being thus deported, against their will, into an enemy land, far from their homes, far from their wives and their children. They are being submitted to that most terrible treatment for free men; being forced to labor as slaves.
We, Deputies, Senators, and notables of Antwerp and its environs, would believe ourselves recreant to all our duty if we allowed such things to occur under our eyes, without resorting to the right that we have of addressing the executive power under any circumstances, in order to make known to it our griefs and our protests.
By what right is this forced labor with deportation introduced into our unhappy country? We seek in vain for a response to this question. The Rights of the People condemn such a measure.
There is no modem author who justifies it. The articles of the Convention of The Hague, defining requisitions made for the benefit of the occupying army, are directly opposed to such a measure.
The constitutional right of all European countries, including Germany, is not less opposed to it.
The most illustrious of your sovereigns, Frederick the Second, has regarded and honored as a dogma, individual liberty and the right of every citizen to dispose of his capacities and of his work as he wishes. An occupying authority ought to respect these essential principles which have been the common patrimony of humanity for centuries.
It cannot be denied that the Belgian deported workers, under the conditions created by this action, will set free a proportional number of German workers to go to the front to fight the brothers and sons of the deported Belgians. This makes them forced partakers in the war against our country, something that Article 52 of the Convention of The Hague prohibits in express terms. That is not all. Immediately after the occupation of Antwerp thousands of our citizens had fled the country and taken refuge in that part of Holland stretching along the Belgian frontier, but the German authorities made most reassuring declarations to them.
On October 9th, 1914, General Von Beseler, Commander-in-Chief of the besieging army, gave to negotiators from Contich a declaration stating: ‘ Unarmed members of the Civic Guard will not be considered as prisoners of war.’
Under the same date, Lieutenant-General von Schutz, the German Commander of the Fort of Antwerp, gave out the following proclamation: ‘The undersigned, Commander of the Fort of Antwerp, declares that nothing stands in the way of the return of inhabitants to their country. None of them will be molested; even the members of the Civic Guard, if they are unarmed, may return in all security.’
On the 16th of November, 1914, Cardinal Mercier communicated to the population a declaration signed by General Huene, Military Governor of Antwerp, in which the General said, for purposes of general publication: ‘Young men have nothing to fear from being taken to Germany, either to be enrolled in the army or to be employed at forced labor.’ A little later the eminent prelate requested Baron von der Goltz, Governor-General of Belgium, to ratify for the whole country, without limit as to time, these guarantees which General Huene has given for the Province of Antwerp. He was successful in obtaining this.
Finally on the 18th of October, 1914, the military authorities of Antwerp gave a signed statement to the representative of General von Terwiega, Commander of the Holland field Army, to the effect that the young Belgian men and unarmed members of the Belgian Civic Guard could return from Holland into Belgium and would not be molested. One of his sentences was: ‘ The rumor according to which the young Belgian men will be sent into Germany is without any foundation.’
Upon the faith of these solemn public declarations, numerous citizens, not alone of Antwerp but of all parts of the country, have returned across the Holland-Belgian frontier to their own hearth-stones. Now these very men, who, once free, returned to Belgium, relying upon the formal engagements of the German authorities, will be sent to-morrow into Germany, there to be forced to undertake that labor of slaves which has been promised would never be put upon them. Under these conditions, we believe it right to demand that the measures taken for these deportations be countermanded. We add that the agreement of Contich formally stipulated that the members of the Civic Guard would not be treated as prisoners of war. Surely, I lien, there can be no question of transferring, them to Germany to give them a treatment even more severe.
The preamble of the Order for the deportations seems to reproach our workers with their idleness, and it invokes the needs of public order and regrets the increasing charges of public charity to take care of these men. We beg to remark to Your excellency that, at the time of the entrance of the German armies into Belgium, there were in this country large stocks of raw materials whose transtormation into manufactured articles would have occupied innumerable workers for a long time. But these stocks of raw materials have been taken from us and carried to Germany.
There were factories completely equipped which could have been used to produce articles for exportation into neutral countries. But the machines and the tools of these factories have been sent to Germany.
Certainly it is true that our workers have refused work offered by the occupying authorities, because this work tended to assist these authorities in their military operations. Rather than win large wages at Ibis price they have preferred to accept privation. Where is the patriot, where is the man of heart, who would not applaud these poor people for this dignity and this courage?
No reproach of idleness can really be made to our worker classes who, it is well known everywhere, are second to none in their ardor for work.
The Order refers in addition to the necessity of good order, and refers also to the necessity of not allowing an increasing number of workless people to become a burden on the public charity.
Public order has never been trouble. As to charitable assistance, it is true that millions of francs have been spent in charity since the beginning of the war, but, for the accomplishment of this immense effort of benevolence, nothing has been asked from the German government, nor even from the Belgian Treasury, administered under your control and fed by our taxes. There should be, then, no anxiety on the part of Germany concerning this money, which in no way comes from it. Indeed, your Excellency well knows that this money does not even come from immediate public charity, but is arranged for by the Comité Nationale, which will continue to arrange for it in the future, as it has in the past.
None, then, of the motives invoked to support the Order of deportations seems to us to have any foundation.
One would seek in vain in all the history of war for a precedent for this action. Neither in the wars of the Revolution, nor of the Empire, nor in any which have since that time desolated Europe, has any one struck at the sacred principle of the individual liberty of the non-combatant and peaceful populations.
Where will one stop in this war, if reasons of State can justify such treatment! Even in the colonies forced labor exists no longer.
Therefore, we pray Your Excellency to take into consideration all that we have just said, and to return to their homes those unfortunates who have already been sent into Germany in accordance with the Order of November 2, 1916.

Professor Kellogg’s papers have just been issued in book form by the Atlantic.

It has been all too long since we were last able to give our readers one of Dallas Lore Sharp’s delightful essays. Professor Sharp, who lives at Hingham, Massachusetts, holds the Chair of English at Boston University. The latest bulletins from the American Ambulance at Neuilly, France, report that James Norman Hall is getting along famously, and that the wound in the lungs he received in single-handed combat with seven enemy ‘planes is almost healed. His term of convalescence has been employed to the great profit of the Atlantic audience, and we are able to promise further chapters of his absorbing narrative ‘High Adventure’ in the November and succeeding numbers of this magazine, leading crescendo to the thrilling climax of the unequal battle in the air.

The first installment of the anonymous novel, ‘Professor’s Progress,’which appeared in the September number, may be briefly summarized as follows: —

Professor Latimer, an elderly, full-fleshed, city-dwelling scholar, has, to use his own words, been very hard to live with since August, 1914. The war has shaken the very foundations of his daily life. ‘ It would descend upon him on bright summer mornings, as he was shaving or lacing his shoes. He woke nights, lest Russia should conclude a separate peace. He hurt his digestion by thinking suddenly of Bethmann-Hollweg.’ After nearly three years of this, he finds himself saying good-bye to a long-suffering wife and leaving town, under doctor’s orders, for a walking trip upcountry. War and all topics connected with it are taboo. The starting-place of his Odyssey is the village of Williamsport, where his sister Harriet has her home — a quiet New England back-water; but even here the war lifts up its horrid head. After a heated argument with Nicholas Runkle, the village skeptic, and a one-sided discussion with a stray guinea-pig, the professor finally buys an outfit from the Jew who has quietly dispossessed the native Yankee storekeeper and sets out alone on the highroad, in search of peace of mind.

Laurence Binyon, whose verses have frequently appeared in this magazine, is curator of the department of Oriental Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. Frederic C. Howe, Commissioner of Immigration of the Port of New York, is a writer of recognized authority on topics connected with foreign relations. For some years now Henry Jones Ford, long an editor of important newspapers, has held the professorship of Politics at Princeton University.

The name of Galene Philadelpheus calls up a wealth of exotic suggestion which is amply fulfilled by the story of her life. Born in Smyrna, of Greek parents, she was taken at the age of four to a small town on the Black Sea, near Trebizond. Of her life there she tells an episode which we are glad to share with our readers: —

I must have been about seven years old, when a man came to the house, one day, and left a book, with the brief injunction that I give it to father. Father was out, at the time, and mother was busy upstairs. I opened the book and took a peep. Unspeakable joy! My heart quickens its beat even now, as I think of it — the book was in Greek! I went into the parlor and shut myself in. As further precaution against brother who might seek me out and want to play, or mother who might ask me to mind the baby, I pulled down the cover of the round center-table, so that it touched the floor on the side toward the door, and seating myself in its secure protection, I proceeded to feast. And a feast it was indeed! For the book turned out to be a biography of Abraham Lincoln.
In less time than it takes to tell it, I was lost in the book. That was no mere reading — it was actual living—living over again, together with my new found companion, the experiences of the log-cabin, and of the forest, feeling, and working, and reaching out with him, in kinship with his spirit.
I must have read some twenty-five pages or so, When the familiar click of father’s latch-key brought me suddenly back to my table-cover retreat. My first impulse was to run and tell him of the treasure I had found, but, all of a sudden, an awful fear possessed me. What if the book did not belong to father? What if it should have to be given to some one else immediately, and I should never, never be able to read it through? I clasped the book and sat still. The temptation was strong, stronger than anything I had known till then. ‘ Why not keep the book secret for a few days, until I had safely finished reading it? Who would know the difference?’ Then shame overcame me. I was horrified. I had not known that it was in me to deceive.
The battle raged for a long moment. I crawled from under the table and stood still, with the book clasped to my breast.
No, I could not do it.
I dashed to the door and out into the hall. Father was taking off his overcoat.
‘Father! a man brought this book — is it yours? Is it ours, father?’
The deed was done, and I stood waiting.
Father took the book and looked it over. He must have loaned it long ago, for it took him some time to remember.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is mine, I had forgotten all about, it.’
‘ May I have it, father? May I read it? ’
I held the book in my arms again and, soon, the happiest girl in the world sat behind the table-cover once more.
How many times I read that story! How many nights I slept with that book under my pillow! Can Lincoln mean more to any American-born boy or girl than he has meant to me, I wonder?

O. W. Firkins, essayist and critic, is professor of English at the University of Minnesota. Cornelia Throop Geer, a New Yorker, makes her first contribution to the Atlantic in this number. Katharine Lee Bates is head of the Department of English at Wellesley College. Readers of this magazine are already indebted to Alice Tisdale for several stories of pioneer life in the Manchurian hinterland. From her West Virginia mountain home Margaret Prescott Montague sends her high-hearted interpretation of the American war-spirit.

Dr. Adele Phillips is a native of San Francisco, where she practiced until the catastrophe of the great earthquake. She and her husband then decided to try their fortunes elsewhere, and moved to Berlin. Her successful practice was suspended by the outbreak of war, and she did not resume it until, in her many trips to the market, she noticed the deplorable condition of the women waiting patiently for hours in the food-line. Their need of medical attention was obvious, and Dr. Phillips offered her services free of charge. After the inevitable explanation to the police, she was permitted to practice without restraint, but at the first sign of difficulties with the United States she was told that her visits to the poor must cease.

Dr. Phillips’s sister, Mrs. Jacques Myer, is the only American woman who has been given the Iron Cross by the Kaiser. Residing for twenty years in Berlin, she has not surrendered her American citizenship. Nominally the head of the Red Cross, she has collected and contributed 5000 boxes to the organization, but notwithstanding her tireless efforts and the imperial decoration, she must report twice daily at the police station to have her ausweis officially stamped. Russell Phillips, associate writer of the article, has contributed to numerous magazines.

John Hays Hammond, Jr., though still a young man, is one of that group of brilliant American inventors to whom Europe looks eagerly for some radical solution of the submarine problem. His achievements with radio-controlled boats and torpedoes have received nation-wide publicity. The exquisite work of John Galsworthy is known wherever the English language is read. Benjamin Apthorp Gould is an American-born lawyer who went many years ago to Toronto to head an important, commercial enterprise. Since the war he has been prominently identified with Canadian patriotic movements. Charles Bernard Nordhoff is a young Californian, who, after a term of service as an ambulance driver, has become an aviator under the French flag.

After business hours the Atlantic’s office still overlooks the dusky shadows of Boston Common. A kindly friend suggests that we capitalize our situation by borrowing an idea from our enterprising contemporary, the Hartford (Arkansas) Observer, which it seems observes to some purpose.

‘ If the young man who was seen Sunday evening kissing his best girl while standing at the front gate will subscribe for The Observer before next press-day, no mention will be made of the matter.’

For our readers’ pleasure, we clip a letter contributed to the New York Evening Post: —

SIR: In the Atlantic Monthly for July, Maurice Barrès gives us some charming reading, composed, for the most part, of extracts from letters written from the trenches by young French men of the ages of eighteen to twenty years. These letters, so transfused with religion and patriotism, inspire Barrès with bright hopes for the future of his beloved France.
I enclose you a letter from a rollicking American boy of scarcely eleven summers, which gives a glimpse of what our own country may expect of her young soldiers of the future. The letter is written from a boys’ camp in Maine to an uncle who is with his regiment preparing for the front. My Dear Unde Sam:
Father [told] to me in a letter, that you had enlisted. I am very proud to have an uncle and a cousin go to war. One will fight the enemy with guns and the other will fight ge[r]ms in the mouths of ‘our Boys.’
I am sure you will try your very best to crush the ‘Great Prussian Mitlitarysm.’
It is to[o] bad you have to drill in such hot weather.
Lot of love,
STEW[ART].
Can the young French soldiers beat this?
G. N. N.
New York, August 15.