to their hearths and take up their
daily vocations. In this way the misery of the country--which is
certainly not entirely the fault of Germany (a hit at England)--will be
alleviated. Furthermore, Switzerland's harboring of Belgian refugees is
a demonstration against Germany. Let Switzerland beware of doing
anything to prejudice her neutrality. Finally, there are in our own
country plenty of miserable poor people to exercise our charity upon,
and every one knows that charity begins at home."

Articles have appeared in the German papers expressing surprise at
Switzerland's hospitality, and to all of these carpers, at home and
abroad, these people who have acted out of the purest motives of charity
and love for their neighbor, answer somewhat as follows:

The Belgians that have come to take refuge in Switzerland wished nothing
better than to stay in their own land. They were driven out in hordes,
at the point of the sword, by the Germans. It would be hard to convince
them that they ought to go back and that the Germans will take care of
them. Some of these miserable beings did return, hoping to pick up their
life again after the great shock. They found their village a heap of
stones, their business ruined. How could they, therefore, "return to
their hearths and take up their daily vocations"? If Switzerland's
charitable impulse is to be construed as a demonstration against
Germany, then must Switzerland reflect that any excuse will do, and that
her neutrality has the same validity in Germany's eyes as had Belgium's.
No country, thinking and acting objectively, could find in this movement
anything to "prejudice Switzerland's neutrality."

As for charity beginning at home, one might add that it does not end
there. It would be hard to find a country whose charitable organizations
are so all-embracing as here. In times of peace there are committees who
sew for and otherwise look after every kind of human misery. There are
the tuberculous poor, the girl-mothers, the creches, the new-born
babies, the soup kitchens, the visiting trained nurses, the clinics, the
blind, the vicious, the vacation colonies, the swimming lessons, the
gymnastics, the tramps and their woodyard, &c., and every organization
has its Christmas tree, with distribution of presents when the season of
rejoicing comes around. Now that the war is here, and every available
man is standing at the frontier guarding his Fatherland from invasion,
the soldiers have