premiums he has paid to the State. In peace times a skilled mechanic receives less than two dollars a day, for which he must work at least ten hours." He says that he visited a nobleman on his estate in Hungary, where—as throughout the Central Empires,—the agricultural work is largely done by women who are paid twenty cents a day. "The women in the farming districts of Germany are worked harder than the cattle. In summer time they are in the fields at five or six o'clock in the morning and they work until eight o'clock or later at night. For this they are paid as high as forty-eight cents a day in harvest time." We have a Contract Labor Law which forbids the importation of labor. Germany every year imports a million laborers from abroad and the employers favor both the employment of women in farm work and the importation of labor, for the more workers the lower the scale of wages throughout the Empire.

There is a document written by a German, Siegfried Balder, which is printed in the Congressional Record for January 17, 1918.

The writer says that in Prussia, whose population is two thirds that of all Germany, only one twentieth of the householders have an income equal to $750 a year, while over fifty per cent are living on $225 a year or less; more than 820,000 of the population of Berlin are living in single rooms, while 49,991 of these single rooms house from five to thirteen people each. Large numbers of the Prussian work people are doomed to live and die in quarters narrower than a prison cell.

But if this is what Germany does to her own, to men of Teuton blood and to the children of the Teuton God, what does she do to those who are born in the outer darkness of other lands, to those who are not of Teuton blood, to the laboring men of other nationalities?

You know the story of the Belgian Deportations. When the Germans overran Belgium many thousands of the people sought refuge under the flag of Holland. Germany then pledged her word to Holland that, if she would exert "gentle pressure" on these refugees and force them to return to their homes, the German Administration in Belgium would hold itself bound by the terms of the Hague Conventions. The German authorities "did not for a moment dream of making them prisoners, of making requisitions, or of deporting those who are law abiding into Germany." The German Governor of Antwerp also gave his pledge to Cardinal Mercier, first verbally and then in writing, that "young men need not fear deportation into Germany whether for enrollment in the army or for employment at forced labor." This pledge was finally ratified by the Governor General, Gen. von der Goltz, in the presence of witnesses "pour la generalité du pays et sans limite de temps." (Les Deportations Belges, à la Lumière des Documents Allemands, Chapter 14.)

One year later another Proclamation appeared:

"Recently workmen have refused, without reason, in different parts of the occupied territory, to obey the commands of the Military Commanders relative to the performance of necessary work; they have caused great harm to their communes and their fellow citizens. To avoid such conditions I order as follows:

"Those who are able but refuse to work or to continue their labors in accordance with their usual occupations, in accord with the interests of the German Military Administration and the desire of the German Military Commanders shall be punished by imprisonment up to one year. Also recusants may be sent into Germany. The fact that they appeal to any possible law of Belgium or even to International Conventions can never justify a refusal to work. The Military Commander alone will decide on the acceptability of the forced labor."

One year later still, in October, 1916, the deportations began. It is not necessary that the story be told again. You know that boys and girls, men and women were torn from their homes, packed into cattle cars and sent on long journeys, with insufficient food and clothing, into Germany. There they were threatened with rifles, bayonets, and machine guns to compel them to sign statements to the effect that they were voluntary workers in German munition factories. Do you know that girls have been beaten with whips for failing to complete their tasks? In one place they were promised four marks a day, but two and a half marks were deducted for food and lodging, one mark for clothes, half a mark went into a "reserve fund" and they were paid half a mark a day, about six cents. But they did not really receive that for they were under a military Governor who had the power to fine them up to fifty dollars for the infraction of any one of a hundred petty military rules, for failure to salute an officer, for instance, and remember, the German salutes his officer when he is two blocks away. In other words they were subject to a fine, without appeal, which was equal to more than two and one third years' pay at six cents a day! We have the record of a girl, which is interesting only because she is a type, who received 187 cents for 180 days work, about one cent a day.

An advertisement appeared recently in a Berlin paper which read as follows: "For Exchange: Fifty Polish workpeople, twenty men, thirty girls, for exchange for an equal number of workpeople of other nationalities."

Wherein does this differ from slavery? God help the workers of America if Germany wins this war. Do you realize what Germany proposes for America? Mr. McAdoo has already told us that she proposes to take from us an indemnity of one hundred and twenty-five billions of dollars, one-half our total wealth. She has told us that she will take charge of our Monroe Doctrine and "put us in right relations with Germany." Now she tells us that she intends to dictate to us our tariff laws, to tell us what we must admit free of duty and what we must ship without impost. In other words, Germany proposes to bring the American workman, who before this war was receiving an average wage of $667 a year, into competition with the Prussian worker, who lived on $225 a year. Let every laboring man, skilled or unskilled, understand his own vital stake in the winning of this war.

Now look at some of the issues of this war.

You know Germany's dream of a Middle Empire; of a great new kingdom that is to stretch from the English Channel to the Persian Gulf, from the borders of Normandy through Mesopotamia. It is to include Northeastern France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Austro-Hungary, parts of Switzerland and Italy, Serbia, Roumania, Turkey, Armenia, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. Into this Middle Kingdom Greece and Roumania on the South and Norway and Sweden on the North are to be forced by economic pressure. To this Empire we must now add Poland, Courland, Livonia, Finland and the Ukraine, while Persia is to be "exploited" for the benefit of Germany.

Think for a moment of the resources of this Empire.

Hungary, Roumania, Asia Minor, the Ukraine and Mesopotamia can feed the entire world. The oil fields of Roumania, Southern Russia and Mesopotamia can light the world. The iron fields of Mesopotamia are said to be the richest undeveloped iron mines existing on the globe, and the Argennis copper mines are without a rival. This Empire could provide an army of fifteen million men in times of peace and of forty million in times of war. Its railroads, rivers and canals afford the most complete