JUSTICE AND THE EXKAISER-

Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 957, 14 November 1918, Page 8

JUSTICE AND THE EXKAISER-

The Hangman Waits TTTF, greatest criminal that the world has ever known must not be allowed to slip through the. handvS of justice. No doubt Willieini, the Assassin, for as such he should be known to future generations, thinks he has saved his dirty skin by forsaking his seat on a tottering throne. Like the fire-eater, Count Reventlow, who lost no time in slipping across the Danish frontier, Kaiser Wilhelm, along with Willie the Kimt- and Von Hindenburg, has bolted from Berlin per express train and has skipped over the Dutch frontier to claim safety in a neutral country. But the man whose Ministers sneered at a< solemn treaty as a, "scrap of paper," cannot complain should the Allies demand that no haven of refuge shall be accorded the Arch Assassin by a neutral State. Human justice demands that Wilhelm should be punished for his crimes against civilisation and humanity. That deliberate, foul crime can be sheeted home directly to the ex-Kaiser is the opinion of famous American and English jurists. The ex-Kaiser boasted that he was the head of the German Army and Navy. The orders for the campaign of super-frightfulness by the U boats were given in his name. He is just as fairly to be held guilty of having murdered the 1400 and odd innocent men, women, and children who went down in the Lusitania as was the commander of the submarine which fired the fatal torpedoes. Nay, the anointed villain openly and brazenly applauded that crime of crimes, the stain of which will far ever a.ttach to the German nation from which spring the chief criminal and those who carried out his orders. Did he not order the striking of. the thrice infamous Lusitania medal and order its free distribution to every child in th e Fatherland ?

Then, again, there are the murders, for no other term can properly apply, of poor Edith Cavell and the unfortunate Captain Fryatt. In each case the final decision was referred to* Potsdam, and the Kaiser promptly and callously "turned down his thumb," like Roman audiences, who decided life or death for the victims in the arena. German spite vented itself upon the bodies of a noble and innocent Englishwoman and a gallant sailor, whose only crime was that he did his duty to his owners and his country. But the greatest, foullest crime of all that can .be sheeted home to the canting coward who now spends his time appealing to a God whose laws he has wantonly outraged, was his cold-blooded ukase to Austria that she must force war upon Serbia. As to this we have the testimony, clear and unmistakeable, of Prince Lichnowsky. No one knew better than the Kaiser that by so acting he was precipitating war between Russia and Austria, and in its turn a conflict with France and Greats Britain.

To all the humane, honest, and wise remonstrances and appeals of Great Britain the Kaiser turned a deaf ear. He wilfully plunged Europe into a ghastly welter of blood and misery, and he should now pay the penalty! We shall hear,, no doubt, the usual cant about the ' 'wickedness of revenge." But no maudlin sentiment, no perverted ideas of what is or what is not justice should be allowed to prevail. The man, Wilhelm of Hohenzollern, has been the direct agent in the death of millions of men, women, and children. ke is to escape punishment, then the world may well despair of justice ruling therein. Let him die the murderer's death. The hangman waits.