Sinking; Smuggling

Swank young Alfred Duff Cooper, new British Secretary of State for War, lately remarked: "Edith Cavell was a courageous woman whom the Germans were entitled to execute."

That the Germans were also entitled to sink the Lusitania was roundly declared last week by one of Britain's highest naval authorities, Admiral the Earl of Cork and Orrery, commander of the British Home Fleet (1933-35), President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and Admiral Commanding the Royal Naval War College (1929-32). To a London audience, over which gradually fell a great hush, the Admiral declared: "The Lusitania might have been used to transport 10,000 American troops on a single voyage to fight Germany. If women and children choose to cruise about in war areas, they must expect what they get. In sinking the Lusitania as an act of war, the Gearman Admiralty was right!"

In Paris fortnight ago the Frenchman who got 20 years for peaching on Nurse Cavell to the Germans, M. George Gaston Quien, was out of jail, having served 17 years. While a prisoner he fell heir to a large fortune and his sentence was commuted. Last week, fashionably dressed but prematurely white-haired and prison-pale, M. Quien was bustling about with his lawyers. "My demand is for a new trial and complete exoneration," he said. "This is a case of mistaken identity. It was not I but another man who disclosed to the Germans the activities of Nurse Cavell."

These activities included Miss Cavell's use of her immunities as a Red Cross nurse to engage in smuggling out of Belgium numerous Allied soldiers & spies. Therefore, according to Britain's highest Army authority today, she deserved Death at the hands of the Germans.

In Brussels last week died Nurse Ada Doherty, an assistant of Nurse Cavell in man-smuggling. She, too, was to have been shot but with Irish wit feigned insanity so cleverly that the Germans kept her in prison until after the War. She married a Belgian named Bodart, and in 1927 wrote to a London paper: "Some time after I had been repatriated to Brussels and was busy with my washing, I was told I was wanted at the French Embassy. I went just as I was, with a bundle of washing under my arm. When I arrived I found General Petain surrounded by staff officers. I handed my bundle to a soldier. Then I was taken out on parade, a battalion of French soldiers presented arms and General Petain pinned the Legion of Honor on my breast. It was a proud moment."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.