I do not think the colorless recitation of facts, fortified by name, place and date, is rabid or frenzied.
The Literary Digest says: "Of the 'atrocities' in Belgium, we find reports of a 'friend,' or a 'friend's friend,' or what 'some one saw or heard.'"
I have told what I myself saw and heard.
"Fair-minded readers will be inclined to reserve judgment."
But in the light cast by eye-witnesses and German diaries, we have reserved judgment too long. Our American Revolution would have been a drearier affair, if the French had reserved judgment. In a crisis the need is to form a judgment in time to make it tell for the cause of justice. Truth-seeking is a living function of the mind.
Another critic says: "By careful reading one sees that, while it pretends to give real evidence, there isn't any that is real except where not essential. Mr. Gleason attempts to belittle the stories of priests inciting girls to deeds of violence."
I do not attempt to belittle those stories. I disprove them on the evidence given by German generals, whose names I cite. Because I defend Roman Catholic priests from slander does not mean that I am anti-Protestant. Because I prove that Belgium and France have suffered injustice does not mean that I am anti-German. I went over to find out whether Belgian and French peasants, old men, women and children, were a lawless, murderous mob, or whether the German military had sinned in burning their homes and shooting the non-combatants. Neutrals can not have it both ways—either the peasants were guilty, or the German Army was guilty. I found it was the German Army that had sinned.
This critic goes on to say: "Only a few years ago the entire world was shocked by the horrible atrocities carried on in the Congo."
Evidently those atrocities were proved to his satisfaction. But was the case not established by the same process I have used—personal observation, documentary proof, and the testimony of eye-witnesses?