Never since the world began has there been such a campaign of barefaced humbug and lying as that organized by William, Hindenburg, Hollweg and Co. for the deceiving and fleecing of the much-tried countries temporarily under their sway.
But the money had to be got in by hook or by crook, and by hook and by crook and in every nefarious way they have milked their unfortunate peoples dry.
But there is another side to all this. In time, the veil of lies and false intelligence of victories in the North Sea, and at Verdun, and, indeed, wherever Germany has fought and failed, will be rent by the spear of Truth.
Then will come the _débâcle_. And then, unless every scrap of grit and backbone has been Prussianized out of the Teuton, the revulsion of feeling will sweep the oppressors out of existence; and Germany, released from the strangle-hold, may rise once more to take the place among the civilized nations of the world which, by her foul doings of the last two years, she has deliberately forfeited.
"Was blazen die Trompeten Moneten heraus?"]
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Looking at this cartoon one can understand why Raemaekers is not _persona grata_ in the Happy Fatherland. With half a dozen touches he has changed Satan from the magnificent Prince of Evil whom Gustave Doré portrayed into a--Hun. Henceforth we shall envisage Satan as a Hun, talking the obscene tongue--now almost the universal language in Hades--and hailed by right-thinking Huns as the All Highest War Lord. Willy senior must be jealous.
With the learned Professor, the cartoonist not only produces a composite portrait of all the _Herren Professoren_, but also drives home the point of his amazing pencil into what is perhaps the most instructive lesson of this monstrous war--the perversion to evil uses of powers originally designed, nourished, and expanded to benefit mankind. When the _Furor Teutonicus_ has finally expended itself, we do not envy the feelings of the illustrious chemists who perfected poison gas and liquid fire! Will they, when their hour comes, find it easy to obey the poet's injunction, and, wrapping the mantle of their past about them, "lie down to pleasant dreams?"