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Copyright, 1913, by the Stir Compmy. Great Britain Rights Reserved,
5,
a Society Pledge*
World-Wide
Peace by Destroying
Great Soldier
Bring
Warlike
“Thou Shalt Not Kill!” This terribly realistic drawing
by the great Russian artist, Emile Holarek, is one of
those used by the murder syndicate in its propaganda.
It was found In the house of an arrested member.
Paris, May 31.
T HE secret police of France and of every European
country are engrossed and perplexed by the dis
covery of a new world wide conspiracy.
This is nothing less than a murder syndicate—an iron-
bound secret organization of men and women pledged
to exterminate all the kings, rulers, ministers of war
and generals of Europe
The most intellectual reformers of the salons, the
most delicate visionary women have joined hands with
the red-handed anarchists of the Paris slums in this
conspiracy.
The object of the intellectual leaders is to put an
end to war. Maddened by the constant increase
armies, by the appalling developments
of the mechanical implements of
slaughter, an by the total failure of
the peace propaganda, they have de
termined to light war by murder. The
only answer to all the lawful efforts
of the peace advocates has been an
increase of the term of military
service iu France and Germany and
t he addition of about 3,000,000 men to
the armed forces of those count ties.
The only resort, then, was to at
tack the men who made war. Above
all, they determined to attack the
generals. They were struck by the
significant fact that the generals and
men in very high places who make
war are the ones who run least risk
in war. Therefore, it was necessary to
bring war home to them. The gen
erals are easily reached in time of
peace, and even in time of war by
those on their own side.
A long series of recent assassina
tions and attempted assassinations is
now attributed to the conspirators.
The King of Greece, at the head of
his victorious army, was assassinated
by one of them. The murderer was
Aleko Schinas, a visionary half-de
mented schoolmaster, a true type of
those who are involved in this move
ment.
Nazim Pasha, the Turkish com
mander-in-chief, a brilliant man, who
might have saved his country, -was
murdered by another of the band dur
ing the retreat to Constantinople.
King Alfonso of Spain nearly per
ished at the hands of one of them,
Rafael Sanchez Aliegre, the other day.
The French secret police are now
investigating the mysterious circum
stances attending the death of Gen
eral Guillemin, a. brilliant young general, who would
have had a command of critical importance on the
eastern frontier in case of a war with Germany.
The general, who was a bachelor, had been much in
the society of the clever young wife of an elderly pro
fessor of the University of Lille. It now appears that
the general was poisoned at a dinner to which he was
invited by the young woman.
The life of every prominent general in the French
and German armies is believed to be in danger from
this cause. The number of women of high social posi
tion engaged in the conspiracy is the most baffling
factor to the police. It is even whispered that prin
cesses of royal families are involved in the movement.
These women are very difficult to handle because they
are thoroughly earnest in their desire to end war, are
very intelligent and reckless of personal consequences.
Evidently they have been inspired by tbe success of the
English militant suffragettes in creating a reigh of
terroi among the ruling classes.
The women of the new conspiracy are in many
cases intimate friends of the leading generals. It is
•*F ather In
Heaven! Thou art
gazing down at us
In such terrible silence. Deal l'hou
shudder at these sons of men?
Thou poor and slight God! l'hou
couldst only rain Thy paltry pitch
and sulphur on Sodom and Go
morrah. But we, Thy children,
whom Thou hast created, we are
going to exterminate them by high-
pressure machinery, and butcher
whole cities in factories. Here we
stand, and while we stretch our
hands to Thy Son in prayer and
ory Hosannah! we are hurling
shells and shrapnels In the face of
Thy image, and shooting the Sou
of Man down from His Cross like
a target at the rifle butts.
“And now the Holy Communion
is being celebrated. The organ is
■playing mysteriously from afar
and the flesh and blood of tbe
Redeemer Is mingling with our
flesh and blood. There He is hang
ing on the Cross
above me and gaz
ing down upon me!
“How pale these
cheeks look! And
these eyes are
Every
Ruler
“The Mothers Curse War.” Ferrier’s famous painting of war’s horrors}
used by the “Syndicate.P
‘War.’
Franz Stuck’* powerful painting, showing the Inhuman war god riding over his victims. By such pictures as these the “Murder Syndicate"
part of its campaign.
carries on a most important
the eyes as of one dead! Who was this Christ Who is
to aid us, and Whose blood we drink? What was it
they once taught us at school? Didst Thou not love
mankind? And didst Thou not die for the whole human
race? Stretch out Thine arms toward me. There is
something I would fain ask of the * * * ah! they
have nailed Thy hand to the Cross, so that Thou canst
not stretch out a finger toward us.
"Shuddering, I fix my eyes on the corpse-like face
and see that He has died long ago, that He is nothing
more than wood, nothing other than a puppet. Christ,
it is no longer Thee to whom we pray. Look there!
Look there! It is he. The new patron saint of a
Christian State! Look there! It is he, the great
Djengis Khan. Of him we know that he swept through
the history of the world with fire and sword, and piled
up pyramids of skulls. Yes, that is he. Let us heap
up mountains of human heads, and pile up heaps of
human entrails. Great Djengis Khan! Thou, our pat
ron saint. Do thou bless us! Pray to thy blood-
drenched father seated above the skies of Asia, that he
may sweep with us through the clouds; that he may
strike down that, accursed nation till It writhes in its
blood, till it never can rise again. A red mist swims
before my eyes.
“Of a sudden ) see nothing hut blood before me. The
heavens have opened, and the red flood pours iu through
the windows. Blood wells up on the altar. The walls
run blood from the ceiling to the floor and * * * God
the Father steps out of the blood. Every scale of his
skin stands erect, his beard and hair drip blood. A
giant cf blood stands before me. He seats himself
backward on the altar and is laughing from thick,
coarse lips—there stts the King of Dahomey and butch
ers his slaves. The black executioner raises his sword
and whirls It above my head. Another moment and my
head will roll down on the floor. * * * Another mo
ment and the red jet will spurt from my neck. * * *
Murderers! Murderers! None other than Murderers.
Lord God in Heaven. Murderer to Thy Face!”
Lamszus has succeeded iu drawing a most horrifying
picture of the fate of men helplessly opposed to the
chemical implements of slaughter. “We are no longer
making war against men,” he says, “ but against picric
acid and electric wires.”
The old red-blooded emotions of combat have been
eliminated by the mechanical conditions of modern
war The strain becomes greater than human nerves
can endure, and hideous forms of insanity mark the
course of a battle.
Perhaps the most gripping feature of the book is a
picture of a regiment driven to mad
ness by the horror of being show
ered by the blood and bones and
dying remains, of a regiment of the
enemy blown up by a mined field.
The onlookers, theoretically the vic
tors, .begin fratically beating the life
out of the dying remains, not because
they are in any danger, but because
the hideousness of the scene has
deprived them of reason. The soldier
thus describes his own condition at
the end of this dreadful scene:
“I see wild beasts all around me
distorted unnaturally in a llfe-aud-
death grapple * * * with blood
shot eyes, with foaming, gnashing
mouths, they attack and kill one an
other, and try to mangle one another
* * * I leap to my feet. I race
out into the night, and tread ou quak
ing flesh * * * step on hard
heads and stumble over weapons and
helmets * * * something is
clutching at my feet like hands, so
that 1 race away like a hunted deer
with the hounds at his heels * * *
and ever rpore bodies * * *
breathless * * * out of one field
into another * » * horror is
crooning over my head * * *
horror is crooning beneath my feet
* * * and nothing but dying,
mangled flesh!” * * *
It will easily be understood that
sensitive and imaginative people who
have fallen under the influence of
writing of this character would feel
justitied in killing those responsible
for bringing such horrors on the hu
man race.
a simple matter for them to drop a dose of poison in
the war lord’s wine, or, if need be, to thrust a stiletto
into his heart when he is off his guard. Another recent
death of a French general is said to have been of the
latter violent type. The circumstances surrounding
it were of such a character that the authorities are in
doubt whether they dare risk the scandal of a public
prosecution.
The advanced women of France and Germany and
other countries are making common cause in this move
ment. They have been inspired to a great extent by
the German schoolmaster, Wilhelm Lamszus, author
of that amazing new book, “The Human Slaughter
house," a work which interprets their fervid senti
ments most faithfully.
This book has been suppressed by the German Em
peror, who sees in it a deadly attack upon all directors
of war, such as he is himself. There is one passage
in this book, which expresses especially well the mad
passionate, fanatic feeling against war which animates
those who hfive sworn to end it by murder. Here is
this passage in full:
T
Be Sure It’s Not Soap That Makes Your Soft Drink Foam!
fHE recent warning issued by
the New York Department of
Health of the custom of ven
dors of “soft drinks” to produce an
inviting, creamy foam by the use of
“saponin,” a preparation of soap
bark, reminds the editor of the Lon
don Lancet, medical journal, that
similar warnings have been printed
in that periodical for several years
past. The Health Department bulle
tin on the subject says:
“The average person who drinks
soda water, sarsaparilla, cream soda,
root beer and other so-called 'soft
drinks,’ probably imagines, if he
gives any thought to the matter, that
the creamy deep foam which tops
his glass results naturally from the
liberation of the carbonic acid gas
therein contained. Such, unfortu
nately is frequently not the case, the
foam, especially when deep, white
and creamy, being sometimes pro
duced artificially by the addition of
a substance known as soap bark,
various preparations of which are
upon the market.
“ ‘Soap bark’ is poisonous and
markedly so, its toxic principle being
sapotoxin. On this account the De
partment of Health has determined
to prohibit its use, and henceforth if
the cheaper grades of soda water,
etc., do not present so attractive an
appearance as heretofore, they will,
at least, exercise no detrimental ef
fect upon the community.”
Remarking that this injurious adul
teration of “soft drinks” doubtless
still prevails elsewhere, the Lancet
says:
“We objected primarily to the falfee
appearance of healthy effervescence
which the addition of saponin gives
to beverages, because such an ap
pearance implies a wholesome
aerated condition of the fluid due to
disengagement of carbonic acid gas.
“Although the quantity of saponin
necessary for the purpose Is small,
yet it Is equally without doubt a pois
onous glucoside, and on general prin
ciples It Is desirable to keep poisons
out of liquids destined for human i
consumption. That saponin Is notjj^ago prohibited in Austria.”
altogether an inert body is evident
from the fact that its lather has
been used to kill pediculi of the scalp,
and further, though it appears to
have been used as an expectorant In
•bronchitis, it is contra-indicated in
inflammation of the intestines or
stomach and in ulcerated couditions
of the mucous membrane.
“Our references to these facts in
relation to the use of saponin in com
mon beverages, such as mineral
waters and beer, were generally dis
credited on the score that the quan
tity sufficient for giving a “head”
■ was infinitesimal.
^ “It is significant, at all events, that
the use of saponin was some years