Life, 1918-09-12 · page 25 of 34
Life — September 12, 1918 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page discusses post-WWI justice while satirizing wartime profiteering. The main article debates whether Germans should face extermination versus legal punishment. The author argues that while German war crimes warrant prosecution of leaders and responsible officers, wholesale extermination is both morally wrong and impractical—Allied soldiers shouldn't conduct themselves as German troops did in Belgium and France. The cartoon below mocks American hypocrisy: a profiteer calls himself a "patriot" while explicitly stating he profits from government contracts rather than patriotic motives. The figure appears to be a businessman or war contractor, suggesting that American businesses exploited the war effort for profit while claiming moral superiority over Germany. The dog illustration above captioned "A ship took him away, so a ship must bring him back" likely references soldiers' return home—a separate sentiment about military service.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: 387 \ ship took him away, so a ship must bring him back” Exterminating the. Germans [8 come of the papers of August 18th—the New York Times for one—are disclosed the sentiments of the Rev. George A. Griffith of Baltimore, said to be serving in I ¢ as chaplain of the Fifth Field Artillery, as to the ed of exterminating the Germans. He thinks it mu: lone. He says, “ There is not one of us here who does not want to see Bocheland dev ed from one end to the other, with Berlin a blackened ruin, with the Boche exte nated, militarists and all, before we come home, The course this reverend person advocates does not need tu be preached in the United States, That Germany must leaten toa standstill is obvious. 1 y let-up before she is »heaten would be wrong and mistaken seems also obvious. at the abominable cruelty with which the Germans have carried on war calls for punishment, and is now the great- est obstacle to a negotiated peace, is also true. But who ould have the Allied troops conduct themselves in Ge: many as German troops behaved in Belgium and France nd wherever else they have been? Who wants to read tories of wholesale violation of women, murder of non- combatants, destruction of historical monuments, mutila- tion, enslavement and the rest, by men of France, England and the United States? There can be no reasonable objection to hanging some hundreds or thousands of the German war-masters who are responsible for this war, if they can be caught and tried Officers who can be definitely connected with atrocities should he hung if they can be caught, and the guilt of many such German officers is well known, Where punishment will fit a definite crime there should be punishment, if possible, but wild cries for the extermination of the mass of Germans go for nothing. Nobody wants the job. We believe that there are not among the Allies men fit to carry out such orders as we know have been given by German officers to German soldiers, and obeyed. Germany's punishment is sure. It has been going steadily on for four years, will go through to the bitter end, It includes now the innocent and the guilty, the young and the old, the humble and the proud. The wretched German people, already bereaved, impoverished and half-starved, are beaten in this war, They see their sons and hushands and fathers killed or mutilated at the front, their older children running wild or drafted, their younger children stunted and ailing from under-nourishment, their old peo- ple dead or dying prematurely from the same cause They have done all they could, given all they had, to put over a monstrous crime upon humanity, and they have failed, and now know, or soon will know, that the force exists, and is in plain sight, that will overwhelm them, and that from HE CALLED ME “WELL, AREN'T YOU “NOT ON YOUR GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS! NOWADAYS (at A PATRIOTIC ONE,” comicbooks.com