Dr. Henry van Dyke, former American ambassador to the Netherlands, and Alexander J. Hemphill were made Chevaliers of the French Legion of Honor.
Companion of the Order of Bath--Major General William L. Kenly. Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George--Brigadier General William Mitchell, Brigadier General George S. Diggs, Colonel Walter Kilmer and Major Harold Fowler.
The widow of Col. Robert Bacon, who fell in action, was invested with the insignia on behalf of her husband of the order of British knighthood; Edward R. Stettinius was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor; the Order of the Crown was conferred on Elliot Wadsworth of Boston; Mrs. James Hamilton Lewis received a French decoration; Jacob A. Riis received the order of Danneborg from the King of Denmark. This list is only a partial one of Americans distinguished in the manner indicated, which prompted Arthur Brisbane in his column in the New York “American” to observe:
We shall have our little titled class in America, thanks to the British King’s action. General Pershing is now “Sir John”--in England, anyhow, and here if he chooses. Our General Dickman, commander of the Third Army, is made a Knight Commander of the Bath. He will be “Sir Joseph” and his wife “Lady Dickman.” Those that “dearly love a Lord” or a Knight are not all English.
In England such men as Gladstone, Carlyle and others refused any title, setting too high a value upon their own dignity. Some American soldiers have missed an opportunity to take democracy seriously.
=Atrocities.=--It is easily conceivable that had Germany been invaded early in the war by the joint world powers, instead of the reverse, there would have been a decided sentiment in favor of Germany instead of an increasing hatred which in a short time was extended to people of German ancestry in the United States; it held them morally responsible for the alleged atrocities of the German armies in Belgium. When a paper like the New York “Sun” holds that “the Germans are not human beings in the common acceptation of the term,” it cannot avoid the responsibility which that verdict imposes on every person of German lineage in America. It is therefore a matter of duty to investigate the testimony of responsible persons whether the Belgian atrocities had any existence in the light in which they were presented. The administration shares this responsibility in having steadfastly ignored demands for the publication of the report on Belgian atrocities made by the British government early in the war and transmitted to the State Department by Ambassador Page at London. These atrocities were alleged to consist of cutting off of hands of Belgian children, cutting off tongues, of mutilating the breasts of women, of outraging nuns and violating nurses, crucifying soldiers, etc.