[Applause.]
Belgium's "Crime."
Belgium has been treated brutally. ["Hear, hear!"] How brutally we shall
not yet know. We already know too much. But what had she done? Had she
sent an ultimatum 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.
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