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organisation of the American Y.M.C.A., an organisation
which from the beginning did so much moral and
material good. One day, in Stockholm, I was called
on by the principal representative of the Rockfeller
organisation, connected to the Y.M.C.A.—the Reverend
Clinton Harte. He had just come from Germany, where
he had had access to the prisoners’ camps, and was on
his way to Russia to try and obtain the same favour. I
gave him the letters of recommendation he asked for,
and later on I heard that he had made the best
impression in St. Petersburg. Mr. Clinton Harte
afterwards went twice from Russia to Germany and from
Germany to Russia, and in both countries he succeeded
in alleviating the lot of the prisoners of war. Each
time that I questioned him as to the real condition of
our men in Germany the worthy philanthropist avoided
telling me of the cruelties and injustices committed
against those prisoners; and as one day I expressed my
surprise at this reticence, he replied quite frankly that
he had made it a rule not to relate the bad and
disagreeable things he had seen, but on the contrary to commend
the good sides of the regime which the prisoners of war
were under in each of the two countries. “In this way
one avoids reprisals—which are the worst things that can
happen—and one excites a spirit of emulation towards
right and justice, an emulation which ends by making
the lot of the wretched prisoners a little less hard.”
On reflection, I think Mr. Harte was right.
During the years that have since elapsed Germany has
been called to account by the entire Press and the whole
public opinion of the allied countries for the treatment
inflicted by her on the prisoners of war. I consider that
it would be quite futile to add anything to what has been
said and written on the subject. Moreover, a
particularly painful and depressing feeling would stop me at
the present time. The Russian soldiers, prisoners in
Germany and victims to the horrible treatment they
complain of, have, it appears, forgotten all they suffered.
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