The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-09-16
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

| do not know why, but the mere mention of Afsace and Lorraine seem to have the power of stirring Ameri- can audiences to a great desire to see that they are wrested from Germany and restored to France.
 If this be the case among a people thousands of miles away who have not endured the wrong or had con- stantly before their eyes the French provinces being brutally Germanized and every sentiment dear to France outraged, what must be the feeling of Frenchmen who already glimpse the day when once more they will be given to the republic?
 The old men of AIsace were only boys of 15 when they were French, but 45 years of Prussianization has failed to make Alsatians Germans. The his tory of Alsace as French province is happy one. and even the German historians, the most anxious to deny it, have never been able to do so. There is a deep difference between the AL satians and the Germans in point of disposition and mental tendencies, but many striking resemblances between Alsatians and the French.
 One who knows them we'll, says the Alsatian can be serious and methodi cal; he has charming naivette, and his religious faith is of a grave and con- exhaustible fund of drollery which im- meoiately marks him off from the Ger man. He loves refinement in concep- tions. language and manners, and. above all, he is Independent, easily sarcastic, quick on the trigger, which Germans seldom appeAr to be.
 I am afraid that France made the same mistake in Alsace that we have l made in America, for even during the nineteenth century and till the very eve of the war of 1870, the French gov
 ernment encouraged the study of Ger man everywhere; children were always taught their catechism in German and at least an hour every afternoon in the ] elementary schools was devoted to
 German reading or dictation. The idea | of putting French imprint on the
 province by trying to officially spread
 the French language was not even ] thought of. less known attempted. ]
 l Keep this in mind. Prussia seized Alsace entirely and exclusively for military purposes, and not by any means for sentimental purposes. Eis- marck was too we'll posted to believe
 for one moment that the people desired it or would be content under the dom- l ination of Germany. He brutally said. We conquered you, not for your sake but for our own" Here is proof abund- l 1893, the only years | have been able
 to get any statistics covering the mat ter. over 20O,00o Alsatians migrated ! to France.
 A high Lutheran dignitary. after see. ing for himself ~the situation. wrote
 "A weeks journeying in Alsace ane
 Lorraine, including the German speak ing part of the latter, has impressed me that the inhabitants may indeed
 take advantage of German culture and of German administration. espe cially as regards public assistance, bu in their hearts they are Franch." He Won Jagow, after the Sabern incident
 disengaged the lesson of those riots il
 terse avowal. "Prussian officers sta
 toned in Alsace feel as if they wtr
 encamped in the enemy's country
 Up to the outbreak of the war tn
 resistance to Germanization wa
 stronger than it was 20 or even lyears ago; the conqueror had failed ! completely failed. in his attemp. Il
 for that Is what they are. are divide