Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-04-09
A Great Moral and Human Issue.

Writing to the Empress Eugene on October Is,
1870 William the First, grandfather of the present
German Emperor, confded the motive for the forci-
bic annexation Of AlsaceLorraine. His sole cOnsid
Grafton, he said mot desire to augment my
country, whose territory is sufficiently great but Ito
throw back to the starting point the French ar
mics that in the future will to attack u.s. This
interesting avowal, recently made public by the
French Minister of Foreign Affairs along with the
full text of the letter throws fresh significance
one of the most important moral issues of the
II refutes more il further refutation were
needed, the claim that Germany seized the French
provinces because she considered them historically
her own, or because she needed more Her sole
reason aside from the greed that is inherent in the
Prussian character, a military reason, the
old Emperor pointed out. The German mtarists OF
his day, having precfpitated a against unpre-
pared France, were looking keenly forward to their
next brigandish adventure. BY "the French armies
that in the future viii come to attack us" the EN-
peror really meant the next resistance marauding
Prussanism would encounter. In 1870, in 1914,
Germany's dominant impulse was to seize what she
wanted regardless Of right and honor. The same
military necessity that sent her brutal legiOns with
torch and butcher-knife through innocent Belgium
impelled her to take Alsace-Lorraine from France,
despite the protest of the populations thereby brought
under German tyranny
No one denies that these provinces, which
still thoroughly French in sympathy, despite almost
fifty years of Prussian rule, once possessed by
Germanic tribes that they once ruled by Ger
man landgraves and princelets who we're ousted by
Louis the Fourteenth. But if we are to go back to
the seventeenth century for bases and guides to
construct nineteenth century Europe to determine
the vital issues of today, shall find ourselves
hopelessly bewidered. From the earliest recorded
times the territory now call Alsace-Lorrane
disputed ground. Originally it under Celtic do
minion but from to its title shifted under the
recurrrent of racial, baronal and royal wars.
II we followed the proGerman theory to its logical
end ignoring the human truths OF history and OF life
as the German mind always does, conclusion
would be that Alsace-Lorrane should be reconsti-
tuted as a Celtic kingdom, with G. Bernard Shaw,
perhaps for its monarch. On the theory, too,
we should remake America as a Red Mans hunting
ground restore Texas to Mexican banditry and push
the Germans themselves back to their ancient alrs
north of the Elbe.
The fact of moral and of practical Importance is
that Germany took AsaceLorraine in the latter part
of the nineteenth century, when the worlds stand
ards of national right we're far clearer and far higher
than in the misty, turbulent ages preceding. Fur
thermore she took this territory the bitter pro-
test of the majority of its inhabitants, treat
ing them as mere chattels, mere pawns in a game.
II was a great German scholar, Professor Otfried
Nippold Of the University of Berlin, who wrote
when one looks back into the history of Europe dur
ing the last forty years it nconceivable that
anyone can be unwilling to admit that the annexa-
ton of Asace-LOrraine a political mistake and
that the Germans have shown themselves incompe-
tent in their government of the people of Alsace-
Lorraine" To call the annexation" political mis-
take is euphemism. II in truth political crime.
II was piece of Prussan banditry, evil omen of
the greater raid which to be launched some forty
years later By every tie OF national interest and
sympathy Alsace and Lorraine ought to be French,
UainIy as Texas ought to be American And by every
consideration of justice it ought to be restored to
France IL it Is not restored, the Allies will have
failed in one Of their great moral and human obga
tions
They will have failed. moreover, in one of the
sentials to durable peace. America and the Allies
have undertaken extirpate the German doctrine of
force and violence. But would not be indeed
ognizing it and giving it frmer root in the German
mind IL we left AIsaceLorTaine. enduring annlica
tion Of that doctrine in German possession? To the
HohenzoIlern subjects these stolen provinces stand.
as they have since 1871, a glitterng proof of what
miItarism can achieve. material justification of
war for conquest and thus all-sUfcient to
the German rank and file why they should continue
to support the autocracv which wins and holds spos
so MAGNIFICENT. Therefore, to leave Alsace-Lorraine
I'm Germany's clutch would be TO strengthen and,
from their own point of view to vindcate the very
spirit the very forces which have gone to
TO defeat and overthrow II is not France alone that
is concerned: il is the whole world The issue Is
merely political territoral it is fundamentally
moral.
Latest accounts would indicate that the Germans
are paving man for every inch of ground In their