The two Biddle brothers looted the Bank of England, but they became outcasts upon the face of the earth, and always the dungeon yawned for them, just as the Kaiser and von Hindenburg never sleep at night without a vision of an oak tree, a long bough and a hemp rope dangling at the end, for the hemp is now twisted that will one day choke to death the murderous Kaiser and his War Staff.
Let no patriot, whether he lives in Spain, Russia or the United States, forget that ours is a world ruled by men who were defeated.
To-day on the thrones of the world are the heroes, like Paul and Demosthenes; the martyrs who were burned with Savonarola in Florence or poisoned with Socrates in Athens.
To-day, the soldiers of Marathon and Marston Moor, Gettysburg and the Marne now rule the world.
The treasure of the burglar and the brigand dissolves like snowflakes in a river.
Long ago the Hebrew poet said: "I have seen the wicked flourish like a green bay tree, and then I lifted up my eyes, and, behold! he was not." And when a little time has passed all lovers of liberty and humanity will exclaim: "During four years I have seen the Kaiser and von Hindenburg flourish as the green bay tree, and I lifted up mine eyes, and, behold! they were not. For the breath of His nostrils had slain them."
6. Germans Who Hide Behind the Screen
Two thousand years are a long time in terms of history.
Many damnable tools have been invented during these twenty centuries. The rack, the thumbscrew, the tomahawk, the fagot belong among these devilish instruments.
Cruelties so terrible have been devised that old scholars often felt unwilling to believe that men were so low in the scale as to have been the authors of these methods of fiendishness.