The patriot. [volume] (Indiana, Pa.) 1914-1955, 1920-05-08
Lincoln Letter Offers
Solution for Europe
By Wythe Williams

ton, the whole length of Dalmatia as
far as Albania, which also ought to
be absolutely united to Italy.
THE only Italian unity which can
be admitted is one which does not
permit of trampling under foot ol
the simplest principles of the actual
political situation, thus to prepare
for the near future the most bloody
the most deadly of wars.
"Dalmatia has history of almost
twenty-five centuries. The ethical
quantities which have been violent
ly superimposed there, to the preju-
dice of the native Italians, are form
ed by the most barbarous people OF
the world--the Bulgarians, Croats,
Serbians. As | wrote you last time,
the Serbians in particular take no
glory except in assassination and
crimes of carnage and vandalism of
every description.
This glorious Dalmatia, by the
treaty of Campo Formio, was first
given to Austria, then given to Ma
poleon, your great citizen, who has
enriched the glory of France in the
same manner as Christopher Colum-
bus has enriched that of Spain. Then
by the Holy Alliance it was handed
back to Austria.
"As to the Albanians, they are
Italians and nothing else, the same
as the Sicilians and the inhabitants
of the southern part of your penin-
sula. When you Italians were al
ready civilized we Americans had
not yet been born.
Work along this line, my great
friends. The task is hard, but one
must not be discouraged if you wish
to avoid for your children a political
upheaval which will have a most
terrible consequence.
Two empires in my opinion are
destined to disappear from the face
of the earth to make place for the
birth of free and independent nation
alities. mean the British empire
and the Austrian empire which are
indeed historical absurdities, or, if
you like better the expression, eth
nical paradoxes. The universal con-
federation of human consciences
must triumph.
Napoleon once said that Europe
would either become republican or
Cossack. She must not become Co.'S
sack. Russia, it is true, contem-
plates the conquest of Constantine
pie and India in order to possess the
hegemony of the world, but no peo-
pie should oppress others to restrict
them in the geographical distribu-
ton of nations. There will always
be clinical minorities included in
great masses and in the older ma
tions, but they should for the mo-
ment live in peace and harmony with
teh other, because their sacred
rights will be defended when the day
of the desired confederation comes.
The straits of the Dardanelles and
Gibralter should be accessible to all,
and if some day the Isthmus of Suez
be pierced by a canal, it must not be
an niquitous privilege for one people
TO the exclusion of all others. 1t
ought to enjoy a natural and logical
reedom.
Going back to what l have al
aady said, believe that the revolu-
tion should penetrate in the con-
science of all humanity without dis
tinction in order to avoid the vio-
lences, thefts, brutalities, pillages
and bloody impositions which form
the patrimony of humanity and
which already surpass what poor hu-
mans can stagger under. Nations dis
appear, but the ideal remains. 1t is
eternal. For the triumph of this ho-
ly ideal, my dear Melloni, one should
fight to ones last breath. Science
teaches US that our politics should
end all the forms of imperialism
which weigh as great cloud on the
human race. This then would be true
civilization. Yours,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN"