William: "Now you can bring me the American protest"

Even when I was ready to abandon all hope, Leval was unable to believe that the German authorities would persist in their decision, and appealed most touchingly and feelingly to the sense of pity for which we looked in vain.

Hugh Gibson,
First Secretary American
Legation at Brussels.

To condemn any human being, even if he were the vilest criminal, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and execute him at 2 A. M. was an act of barbarism for which no possible condemnation is adequate.

Under these circumstances, it would be incredible, if the facts were not beyond dispute, that the request of the United States for a little delay was not only brutally refused, but that our Legation was deliberately misled and deceived until the death sentence had been inflicted.

James M. Beck
In "New York Times".