The Alaska daily empire., 1915-06-15
GOVERNING PEOPLE AGAINST WILL
 CAUSE OF WAR

AGAINST WILL
 CAUSE OF WAR
 -,e-
 In all the tangle of affoirs in Eur oDe we should keep certain plain and fundamental facts clearly in mind for frequent reference. Down at Che bot. tom of the trouble lies che European habit of governing people without their consent This is shown in the case of the two Alsace-Lorraines. The first of these lies between Germany and France; the second lies between Austria and Italy
 At the close of the Franco-Prussian war Germany exacted huge war in- demnity from conquered France. That France paid. and would strightway have forgotten. But Germany took the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. They had belonged to Ger many in the far past; but they had become French; Treitschke's wonder ful essays clearly recognize this fact again and again. The spirit in his plea for the Incorporation of the Pro vince into Prussia:
 Prussia alone can undertake the
 remorseless sweeping alone of the
 French officials in Alsace, which
 is indispensable. and replace the
 foreign powers by vigorous home
 ince. Prussia alone can stead
 fastly maintain the state of siege
 which we may easily imagine.
 may be necessary for time In
 some of the districts of the for
 lorn land.
 The wrestling away of this land, French in language and sympathies, France could not forgive. So it was that the symbolic statue of Strass. burg in tho Place de To Concorde, in Paris, was draped with mourning from that sad day in 1871 until the sword was unsheathed in 1914
 The dearest statement we have ev- CT seen as to the effect of this event on France and Germany is from the pen of former Imperial Chancellor von Buelow, In his book Imperial Ger many It is the ranking disgrace of the wrestling away of Alsace-Lorraine that has kept France dreaming of re- vanche and armed Germany to the teeth to meet the nation whose pride she had outraged, which was sure to fight some day.
 In like manner, Italy would have forgotten and forgiven much in the higa-handed doings of Austria in the past But between the Italian iron tier and the Alps lies an Italy that is not Italy. There. over a purely Italian population. the Austrian long has ruled, and ruled heavily He has not been able to plead the necessity of a scientific frontier" or anything else. except that he had these dis tricts and intended to hold them. Italy might have forgotten Metternich She might have forgotten the days when Austria held Venice and Verona But how could she forget the oppressive government of Italians by Austrian bureaucrats carried on before her very eyes. in lands Italian in blood and speech and soul for 1,5OO years--lands separated by only an imaginary line from Italy?
 Germany's predicament today is the price of Germany's Alsace-Lorraine. Austrla's predicament today is the price of Austria's Alsace-Lorraine. And both are merely contemporary in- stances of the fragrant disregard by the great powers of Europe of the principles of this nation of ours be- gan with.
 Had the political future of Alsace in 1871 been left to the Alsatians the history of contemporary militarism would never have been written and there would have been no war declar ed at Berlin and Paris in 1914 Had the political future of Trent and its surrounding regions been left to the vote of the inhabitants when the first King of Italy mounted the throne Italy would not have fallen on the flank of Austria in the critical moment of the warn
 Back in 1776 set of Americans met in Philadelphia and pledged each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in defense of the principle that governments derive their irst powers from the consent of the governed and are instituted to secure to their citizens certain in. alienable rights with which men, ere. ated equal, are endowed by the Gre. ator
 There are those who tell us thatl the present war is economic-that it is caused by trade and commercial ambition. This is false. It was not a matter of francs and napoleons that kept that resentment burning to the heart of France which Germany has armed herself against for 40 years. IA s.. f.aA