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TURN ABOUT IS FAIR PLAY Few other items of news from Germany have aforled us such a grim and wholly unadulterated satisfaction as that one which declares the towns along the Khine to be panicstricken over the ef ¬ fects of the bombing operations of the allies So many people have fled from the deadly peril that rents have dropped to a minimum business is paral ¬ yzed the inhabitants have appealed to the govern ¬ ment for relief and the government is considering a proimsal to the allies to confine all bombing op ¬ erations to the zone of war warFrom From the moment of the first air raid on Eng iand we have been unshaken in our Jlief in the duty of reprisals because of the brutal instincts of the German nature The psychological law that kindness kills and that the surest way to burn the meanness out of a mans soul is to heap coals of fire on his head applies to a spiritual type of men or women and not to cruel and bloodthirsty savages That there are people in every community and all too often individuals in families upon whose souls kindness fails as an irresistible fertil zcr of selflove every thoughtful person knows Such priggish people never learn to refrain from evil until it is practiced on them The school yard bully must be soundly thrashed to cure him o the vice of thrashing others We do not repudiate the doctrine of the meek and lowly Nazinne Gentle ¬ ness nonresisteiice the return of good for evil these are the most regenerative forces in the world They ought to be tried to the limit but having been found to harden the hearts of criminals instead of offteniug fteniug them to be abandoned for sterner meas esThose Those es who know the German nature best dis ¬ covered long ago that in their estimation gentle ¬ ness is weakness nonrcsistance an evidence of fear the return of good for evil the proof that a man is a milksop They comprehend no other lan ¬ guage but the hammer stroke of a person stronger than themselves themselvesTherefore Therefore they gloated over the bombing of Eng ¬ lish cities until the fire from heaven fell upon their own The medicine worked quickly then Apt pupils are they in the school of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth toothAs As for ourselves we loathe this method of dis ¬ cipline but we loathe far more the brutal type of human being which makes its use a stern necessity in the conduct of affairs between individuals and nations nationsFor For more centuries than any man can number it has lieeii a rule that turn about is fair play and the linns are getting theirs at last praise be We are not vindictive We do not want to make them suffer for the sake of seeing their torture We only want to heal them of a dreadful disease which nothing will cure but showing them how it feels to endure the torture they are inflicting on other people Cincinnati Enquirer
