New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-22
FrightfuLness in Alsace
By Jonas Lippmann
formerly Of The journal d'Alsdee")

business letter, addressed to his correspond
ent in Basic (Switzerland). Upon being ar
rested he protested rather violently He was
tried before a court martial on the charge
of treason, sentenced to death and executed.
Deportation Is Frequent
Besides executions, there exists in Alsace
as well as in Belgium that imported Prussian
game called deportation. Whole families are
rent asunder. An old couple lived happily,
supported by their children residing in
France and in this country. One day at noon
they were informed that at o'clock of that
same day they were to be deported. The old
folks had never before left their village. At
the appointed time they went to the railroad
station with little hand baggage-all that
they were permitted to take with them. They
were put on a cattle car with hundreds of
other Alsatans, men, women and children;
they travelled all night, slowly, suffering un-
told miseries from the cold When the train
finally reached certain city in Prussia the
old couple were ordered off the train. The
woman was taken TO a farm, the man some
where else. They have not seen each other
since. When the wife saw that she would
be without her husband she shouted 10 her
torturers: Shoot us both, but don't separate
u.s." The man is sixty-eight years old and
the woman sixty-two.
Another phase of moral atrocity is the TAX
ing of hostages, men or women. In the little
town of X. a woman seventy-siX years old
and her invalid daughter have been in the
local Jail since November, 1916 for having
received letter rom "poilu" nephew, tell
ing the old folks: 1--WE will soon be there"
Until recently Alsatian soldiers received
no permission TO visit their parents or rela-
tives in Alsace, because, so read the order
from Berlin, "these men cannot hold their
tongues" In other words, "these men,"
meaning the discouraged soldiers, might in
fuse in their relatives the hope of being soon
freed from; Prussan bondage.
There is not true-blue Alsatian family
residing in Asaee-Lorrane which has not
one or more members under German lock and
key; the treatment these unfortunate people
suffer battles description, and only those who
have lived and experienced that undefnabe
horror called Prussian militarism can vague
ly realize what tortures, moral and physical,
are inflicted upon the civil population. And
ell that after forty-seven years of annexa-
tion
A Policy of Devastation
What, then, is the reason for such Infamous
treatment? Nothing but the approaching lib
Grafton OF that territory by the Allies The
Prussian bluff of ultimate victory is strange
iy contradicted by the attitude of the Prus-
sian authorities in Alsace in the last few
weeks. Every wheel of industry has been re-
moved to the interior of Germany In Null
house alone, that queen city of the cotton
industry, which possesses two millions of me-
chanical looms, nothing of the required ma
chinery remains. The machine shops where
mechanical construction was the most pros
porous within radius of five hundred miles
are empty Every available screw or nail has
been shipped to Germany
And dear old Strasburg has also seen the
hand Of the Prussian highwayman. The mag
nineent hand-painted windows, centuries old
that gave the world famous cathedral that
sober and solemn appearance, have been taken
out OF their frames and sent TO Germany. The
clock, unique in the world by its mechanical
precision and by the automatically moving
saints, has been removed to the interior by
Prussian hands. American tourists. who
every summer day crowded the cathedral at
the noon hour to see that marvellous mechap-
ism work, will readily understand how we
Alsatans must feel in regard TO such prof-
anation and how our brothers over there in
their desperate plight pray to the Lord that
the American uniform may soon appear and
deliver them after nearly a half-century Of
Prussian domination.