Mr. G. H. Putnam sent to the Times of Tuesday
a letter in answer to the criticisms of German-Americans on a previous letter of his. One of his critics had contended that the throwing of bombs on fortified enemy towns—Paris, Antwerp, and so forth—was a legitimate act of war, despite the fact that women and children were killed. But, as Mr. Putnam firmly maintains—a point which is of course unanswerable—" unless or until a city is under siege (and the notice of siege is, of course, a caution to citizens to withdraw), the throwing of bombs into groups of unarmed people is not warfare in any present use of the term. . . . Such killing is properly to be characterized as murder." It seems that one of Mr. Putnam's German-American critics had actually refused to see any dis- tinction between such murderous bomb-dropping and the British feats in dropping bombs on Zeppelin sheds. As for alleged acts of violence against Germans by Belgians, Mr. Putnam shows that the punishment of communities for the acts of individuals is illegal. Germany pledged herself at the Hague not to be guilty of this criminal practice. Mr. Putnam was a soldier in the American Civil War, and was also a student in Germany. He is thus well equipped with both impartiality of judgment and experience of the conduct of war.
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