Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-01-04
Frances Right and the Worlds
Interest in AlSdCe-LOrraine


The French Minister of Foreign Affairs NJ
Pichon, trenchanty stated one of the great truths
of the war when he said in comment on Ger
many's latest peace strategem
The question of AIsaceLorraine does not
affect France alone II is a world question.
II is not territorial problem, but a moral
problem. On its solution depends whether
not the world shall have a durable peace"
America and England and Italy less than
France vitality concerned in a just. settlement of
this issue. All nations are vitality concerned how
ever remote they are from the war arena or how
ever indifferent to European politics. For this is
a merely political ISSUE nor a merely geograph-
zeal ISSUE rather as NJ. Pichon says, it is a moral
issue and such strikes infinitely beyond all boun-
daries OF continent and sea.
The right Of France to Alsace-Lorraine is as
undeniable mothers right to her children.
The snatching of these provinces from her in 1871
brutal piece of Prussan banditry. Their
people we're, and still are intensely devoted to
France despite all the schemes and prosecutions by
which Hohenzollern tyranny has sought to detach
their hearts and erase their loyal memories. BY
every tie of national sympathy Alsace and Lor-
raine ought to be French as plainly as Texas
should be American; and so it would have been all
ted and precipitated in 1870 as consciencelessly
as she did her greater crime in 1914.
But the issue is broader than the rights of
France alone, indisputable and highly important
as they are. To allow Germany to retain those
stolen provinces would be almost as grave a
and wrong as to allow her to keep strip of
Belgium, because in so doing the Allies would
leave Prussianism not only unchastened but also
in undisturbed possession of one of the richest
writer in the New York Tribune truly remarks that
while have undertaken to repeal the Ger
doctrine of force and violence we should be in
effect recognizing it, if we made peace on terms
which left Alsace-Lorraine- enduring applica-
ton of that doctrine"-in German hands.
The United States has never concerned itself
with selfish enmties and disputes among European
Powers, and it would depart from the way of .
that wise tradition. But the question of Alsace-
Lorraine is far removed from the old sordid
fights for territory and the old mutual trckeries
Of diplomacy the present itself is. France
not only seeks to recover her own, but also to
vindicate those principles of international honesty
and justice without which peoples land or life
can be secure The brutal theft of Alsace and
Lorraine is typical Prussian crime as the in
vasiOn of Belgium. 1t stands in the minds of the
Hohen1ollern worshippers a shining proof of
what INSCRIPTIONS militarism can achieve. It
SCdn0S as the tangible ana unSnaken reward or
war for conquest and, so, in the minds of German
subjects all-sufficient why they should
support the autocracy which wins and holds such
magnificent booty. Thus to leave the French prov
inces in Germany's grasp would be to siren CITIZEN
and, from their point of view, to vindcate the
very forces which the United States has under
taken, for its own and the worlds safety to over
throw.
Americans keenly mindful Of their coun-
trys incalculable debt to France, not only for
her gallant aid in the dark hours of the Repub-
lies struggle to exist, but equally for the heroic
strength of body and soul with which through four
grim winters she has stepmed the barbarian tide
1t Is our battle and civilizations battle no less than
her own which she has been fighting from the first
How else, then could we stand on the question of
Alsace and Lorraine than to insist upon their re-
turn as matter of right to France, as a condem-
nation of Prussian banditry and as a strengthening
of the moral forces which make for Justice and
durable peace?
Russia is beginning to realize that Germany is
hut of