Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-13
AMERICA IN ALSACE
What Bastile Day, 1913, Nieans to Our United States
BY BARTON BLAKE
BY BARTON BLAKE

that are of great military and economic
worth, but that are less in area than Mas
sachusetts and not much larger than Con-
uecticut. Reflect also that by overplaying
her hand against BiSmarck's better judg-
ment and Selling these portions of France
at the close of the Franco. .Prusslan War
Germany not only gained control of the
eastern doorway that leads into France,
not only wounded French pride, but
also fatally Handicapped French industry
and enormously benefited her own:
above all, enormously benefited the national
industry of Prussia-war On May 20,
1915, representatives of German industry
explained to their Imperial Chancellor tha;
during the war the minerals of Lorraine
had supplied so per cent of the manufac-
ture of German iron, and concluded: "If
production in Lorraine were inteifered
with the war would be just about LOST"
ITO PUT Germany back into such place
L in Europe as it is safe for the rest of
the world that this consciously predatory
Power should occupy it is clearly essential
to take from her the soil of Lorraine which
she gained by the cheating and bloodshed
of the Franco -Prussian War. By-war on
land and in the air-for American airmen
should in the not remote future play a
leading part in interfering with produc-
ton in Lorraine"-it will be the pride of
Americans that while we shall be helping
France to regain her own we shall also be
removing a standing menace to the peace
of all the world. And it will be our pride
that we shall be enforcing the principle
that the era for "conquests" has gone by;
that robbery remains robbery that the
burglars trade is not happy one since
in the end he must disgorge his booty, even
if fifty years after. h-
rTNHE people of Germany's western from
l. tier" made known their aspirations as
long ago as 1871. Six hundred and twenty
thousand of them made it known by leav-
ing their homes they loved home, but
they refused to stay there and run the
risk of becoming Germans = In making
possible their return and the freedom of
those who stuck it out, or ,of their de-
scendants, we shall be proving once more
the principle that the government of a
people is founded upon the consent of the
governed. The Deputies of Alsace. .Lor.
raine declared in the French National AS
sembly february 16, 1S7D: "Alsace and
Lorraine do not wish to be alienated.
United to France during more than two
centuries, through good and bad fortune,
these two provinces, unendingly exposed
to the blows of the enemy, have constantly
made a sacrifice of themselves for the ma
tional greatness. They have sealed with
their blood the indissoluble pact which at
taches them to the French unity.
Modern Europe cannot let people be
seized like dumb cattle Guardians as they
are of Justice and of tbe law of peoples.
the civilized nations cannot longer remain
blind to the lot of their neigbbors or they,
too, must fall in their turn victim to such
assaults as they will have tolerated"
WHO shall say that history is not
w prophet, after all? And what Ameri-
can does not glow to the glory of associat-
ing himself with the righting of a great
wrong against peace against nationality
and against the right of civilized people
to decide its own fate?
= "A /.