Belgium has been treated brutally. ["Hear, hear!”] How brutally we shall not yet know.  We already know too much.  But what had she done?  Had she sent an ultimatum to Germany?  Had she challenged Germany?  Was she preparing to make war on Germany?  Had she inflicted any wrong upon Germany which the Kaiser was bound to redress?  She was one of the most unoffending little countries in Europe. ["Hear, hear!”] There she was—­peaceable, industrious, thrifty, hard working, giving offense to no one.  And her cornfields have been trampled, her villages have been burned, her art treasures have been destroyed, her men have been slaughtered—­yea, and her women and children too. [Cries of “Shame!”] Hundreds and thousands of her people, their neat, comfortable little homes burned to the dust, are wandering homeless in their own land.  What was their crime?  Their crime was that they trusted to the word of a Prussian King. [Applause.] I do not know what the Kaiser hopes to achieve by this war. [Derisive laughter.] I have a shrewd idea what he will get; but one thing he has made certain, and that is that no nation will ever commit that crime again.

“The Right to Defend Its Homes.”

I am not going to enter into details of outrages.  Many of them are untrue, and always are in a war.  War is a grim, ghastly business at best or at worst, ["Hear, hear!”] and I am not going to say that all that has been said in the way of outrages must necessarily be true.  I will go beyond that, and I will say that if you turn two millions of men—­forced, conscript, compelled, driven—­into the field, you will always get among them a certain number who will do things that the nation to which they belong would be ashamed of.  I am not depending on these tales.  It is enough for me to have the story which Germans themselves avow, admit, defend and proclaim—­the burning and massacring, the shooting down of harmless people.  Why?  Because, according to the Germans, these people fired on German soldiers.  What business had German soldiers there at all? ["Hear, hear!” and applause.] Belgium was acting in pursuance of the most sacred right, the right to defend its homes.  But they were not in uniform when they fired!  If a burglar broke into the Kaiser’s Palace at Potsdam, destroyed his furniture, killed his servants, ruined his art treasures—­especially those he had made himself, [laughter and applause], and burned the precious manuscripts of his speeches, do you think he would wait until he got into uniform before he shot him down? [Laughter.] They were dealing with those who had broken into their household. ["Hear, hear!”] But the perfidy of the Germans has already failed.  They entered Belgium to save time.  The time has gone. [Loud and continued applause.] They have not gained time, but they have lost their good name. ["Hear, hear!”]

The Case of Servia.