r fund.

Of Mr. Gleason's testimony on atrocities I have already written (see
page 38).

What he saw was reported to the Bryce Committee by the young British
subject who accompanied him, and these atrocities, which Mr. Gleason
witnessed, appear in the Bryce Report under the heading of Alost. It is
of value to know that an American witnessed atrocities recorded in the
Bryce Report, as it disposes of the German rejoinders that the Report is
ex-parte and of second-hand rumor.

His chapter on the Spy System answers the charge that it was Belgium who
violated her own neutrality, and forced an unwilling Germany, threatened
by a ring of foes, to defend herself.

The chapter on the Steam Roller shows that the same policy of injustice
that was responsible for the original atrocities is today operating to
flatten out what is left of a free nation.

The entire book is a protest against the craven attitude of our
Government.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
_March 28, 1916._

THE CONQUERORS

THE SPY

Germany uses three methods in turning a free nation into a vassal state.
By a spy system, operated through years, she saps the national strength.
By sudden invasion, accompanied by atrocity, she conquers the territory,
already prepared. By continuing occupation, she flattens out what is
left of a once independent people. In England and North America, she has
used her first method. France has experienced both the spy and the
atrocity. It has been reserved for Belgium to be submitted to the
threefold process. I shall tell what I have seen of the spy system, the
use of frightfulness, and the enforced occupation.

It is a mistake for us to think that the worst thing Germany has done is
to torture and kill many thousands of women and children. She
undermines a country with her secret agents before she lays it waste. In
time of peace, with her spy system, she works like a mole through a wide
area till the ground is ready to cave in. She plays on the good will and
trustfulness of other peoples till she has tapped the available
information. That betrayal of hospitality, that taking advantage of
human feeling, is a baser thing than her unique savagery in war time.

During my months in Belgium I have been surrounded by evidences of this
spy system, the long, slow preparedness which Germany makes in another
country ahead of her deadly pounce. It is a silent, peaceful invasion,
as destructive as the house-to-house burning and