Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-08-14


PARIS. July IL
1ATER in tho day ! was escorted to an
- other town dozen kilometers away
travelling again over lovely mountain roads
Here was welcomed by the Mayor ant
town ofhcials as well as officers of the gar
rison visiting. among other points Of In
| terest, tho beautiful fifteenth century
cathedral OF which IL is said: "Strasburp
Cathedral est le plus haut (the highesD
| Metz Cathedral le plus gros (the largest)
but - Cathedral lie plus beau the most
bcautifuD." After an hours stay we drove
over the mountains again and down into a
| valley where, in the quaint hotel of -,
we passed the night
Here again the Mayor greeted us telling
me that after tho repusc OF French troops
that had occupied tho village he had been
| taken to Boche headquarters. where, with
revolver at his head. he vas commanded to
give information as to French numbers. lie
refused, was thrown into cellar to be ex-
ecuted the next morning, but was rescued
by the French. who successfully reoccupied
the village during the night An this was
before the days Of trenches
In this village ! spoke t. a dozen lnhab-
itants who expressed their JOY at being
again amid the French and under the pro-
lection Of the flag of their forcfathers. one
was an old man who could neither read
nor write Another was a physician who
had given his professional service to an inn
provscd hospital within the village He
was engaged In amputating the arm of Il
German soldier when Boche ~ exploded
within the house, killing the patient and
wounding the doctor. As he lay In agony
amid the debris a German Lieutenant struck
him in the face. saying, you swine, you
traitorous swine"
In this same village. too. during the two
days Of German reoccupation. man with
whom ! talked was delegated by the Ger
man officer as official water tester. being
compelled to swallow a mouthful from every
pail used for culinary or table purposes.
which he said, did not indicate. Monsieur,
that the Prussians thought we Alsatians
were as loyal to Germany as they have
tried to make the world believe
"Here Liberty Ends"
The next day we motored to mountain
top 5000 feet above the level Of the sea,
Within a half mile Of its summit we left
our cars and climbed the heights. passing
an ancient shrine to the Virgin and fields
Of wild pansies glowing mOdestly purple
in the brilliant sunlight. Upon the top we
entered a circular waist-high observatory
of granite about two feet thick. with a
coping of bronze pointing toward and in
diCatng towns and lands beyond. Here we
spent the forenoon. And from here saw
Hartmans Weiler<opf. the highest point of
all the fighting in the war. The enemy
lines are thirty feet apart. and the French
trenches some meters above the Boche
In another direction | saw Boche-occu-
pied Mulhouse far In the distance the faint
outline of Colmar. with beyond still and
greatly further away the muddy slvcrcd
ribbon OF the Rhine in front of the Black
Forest In another direction still. Switzer-
land And in the middle distance hung
French observation balloons and over the
German lines the sausage-shaped stationary
balloons Of the Bnche. Under the glass |
could family distinguish upon them the
black cross of the Boche and the tricolored
circle Of France.
Zurich, Basel, Luccrne, Mont Blanc,
Mont Terrible Berne and the Jungfrau were
pointed out to me. An about were noun
tains and valleys and red-roOfed towns
nesting among them rs child at its
mothers breast. It was indescribably beau
tiful--the greens of the pines seeming
blue e-black the greens Of the beeches in
yelowish tones the meadows and fields
upon tho mountain lower sides in varied
color. from green to brown. according to
the crop they fOstered.
In the early afternoon we descended and
motored thirty kilometers to the city Of three
sieges. En- route we stopped and stood at
salute Mt the grave Of Hall Richards the
first American Ambulance boy to be killed
in the war. he dying in December. 1915.
Upon this return journey, too, we went
through the tunnel that in its center divided
France from Germany under the Treaty of
Frankfurt, One-haf Of II Is French and
the other half German masonry. The diff
ferences are as characteristic as the tastes
of the two nations-one graceful and prac-
tical, the other practical and cumbersome.
At the open entrance from the German
side sign reads: "Durchgang verbOten
ohne untersuchung" ("Forbdden to pass
without examinationD. At the open en-
trance to the French side another sign
reads: ''Ici fnit la lihertc" t"Here liberty
ends").
And these typifed something as distinc-
tive as the differences in the masonry; ono
of a people whose governmental watchword
is "Verhoten," another whose equal watch
word is Liberty and the rights of men"
Alsace Never German
As night fell we took train for Paris,
carrying an ineXtingulshable memory OF
Asace the beautiful Alsace amid the Vos-
ges mountains. Asace the loyal; Alsace,
where, despite here and there one heard the
Alsatian patois, the speaker was French
at heart, yearning for the day when all
his land and all, too, of Lorraine would
again be and forever remain under the pro-
tecting, lberty-loving flag Of France.
For Alsatians despite their patois which
approaches German. ara French and have
been for centuries Charles Bernard. one
of their poets, expressed this thought when
he wrote:
Deutsch list die sprache. doch fraenk-
isch list das herr
COur language is German but our
hearts are French)
President Poincare and Marshal Joffre
had publicly said in one of the towns | WIS.,
tied that the Alsatian patois should ever
remain nviolate. Napoleon has said upon
divers occasions, Let the Alsatian speak
In his patois since he fights In French" II
Is meet, then, that these fine people speak
in their patois or the language of France
as they elect The former will always be
as their mountains to them, a very part of
their being.
For it dates from the time when Alsace
was Austrian. Never was she German de-
a Nallt Inns A fpw