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man economic pressure. If the Jugoslavs were deprived of Trieste and their communication with the sea, they would no longer be sufficiently strong to resist German southward pressure, which is continually encroaching on the Slovene territory in Carinthia and Styria. Only the possession of Trieste, Carinthia and Southern Styria can enable the Slovenes to block the advance of Germanism towards the Mediterranean, and so accomplish their mission as the Alpine Guard of the Adriatic and Jugoslavdom. In this capacity they would serve the interests of all the opponents of Pan-Germanism, and ensure the security of the allied powers as well, as the national existence of all the Jugoslav

countries.

There are in Hungary 102,000 Slovenes, living between the Mur and the Raab, and 800,000 Serbo-Coats north of the Drava and the Danube. This entire population, which consists largely of wealthy landholders, can only be saved from forcible Magyarisation by union with the brothers of their race. If they are permitted to remain Jugoslavs, the fertile plains of the Bačka and Banat will be preserved to the nation and furnish the other Jugoslav countries with the granary they require.

Any partition of the national territory, and above all the cession of any part whatsoever to a foreign power, would not only seriously impede the development of Jugoslav unity and violate the principle of nationality, but would prove a mere repetition of the Austrian system, and a fresh source of endless conflicts and collisions.

When America decided to enter the war on the side of the Allies, the Jugoslavs at once felt that they won their greatest and mightiest supporter. Although little acquainted with the Jugoslav problem America's entry could not fail to include in its war aims the liberation of the Jugoslavs. President Wilson's momentous declaration concerning the self-determination of nations and peoples proved it. And today America is called upon, more than anyone else, to settle accounts with the Teuto-Magyar powers. This settlement cannot repeat past blunders, neither can it approve diplomatic tricks, intended to create a gloved barrier

around the European cancer, leaving the pestilential hearth untouched and breeding new catastrophes for mankind. America stands for right and democracy, and right and democracy must be the flag of the future peace. Germany and Austria-Hungary stand for autocracy and for oppression, and if they get a single button-hole through which to escape, they will remain a menace for peace and humanity. America's duty is to prevent this and to impose upon the world such a peace which will fully satisfy all those who have their life long fought and struggled for those principles which would make the world a decent place to live in. America's mighty will and her tremendous moral powers can achieve it.

The only thing the Jugoslavs ask, is justice. If justice conquers all the dark powers which have so long oppressed the world, then the Jugoslavs will at last get their own home in which they can devote all their abilities for the benefit of civilization and humanity. Their liberation and unification, so fervently desired by them, will be also a gain for the allied nations, respective for the world's democracy. With this war the Jugoslavs have entered the universal history, their problem being at last recognized as an integral link in the chain which extends from Hamburg to the Gulf of Persia. The Jugoslavs are one, and it can safely be said, the most important means to break this chain. Therefore democracy-true democracy-wherever it breathes, ought to help the Jugoslavs, to support their cause, and with that support to ennoble its own cause for which so much precious blood has been shed.

THE FUTURE OF ALSACE-LORRAINE

By David Starr Jordan, LL.D., Chancellor of Leland Stanford

University
I

Of all the problems in political geography raised by the war, the one that seems most difficult to settle is that of Alsace-Lorraine. Torn from France, by what its deputies in 1871 rightly called "an odious abuse of force," misruled for forty-five years by dull-witted officials under orders to substitute discipline for freedom, and systematically robbed and abused in the present war, Alsace-Lorraine is under no obligations legal or moral to the German Empire. The claim of France although morally wholly genuine, is legally not much better than that of Germany. In the old dynastic fashion, Emperor Napoleon III, wagered his Rhine provinces against those of the Kaiser and duly lost. Under the rules of the game, the stake went to Germany. The republic which followed the Emperor's downfall perforce weakly abandoned it in the Treaty of Frankfort in order to avoid still greater calamities. The people concerned were not consulted. Under dynastic rule they had no right to be considered, and under absolutism they have acquired none since. Meanwhile the "Tragedy of Pride" as Ferrero calls it, prevents either nation from yielding even to its own advantage.

For fifty and more years the Germans have tried in vain to assimilate the Alsatians, the Danes in Flensburg, and the Poles in Posen. The reason for their failure is that the Prussian government has offered discipline instead of freedom. The fatal word "Eroberung" (conquest) has always stood in the way of understanding. No loyalty is possible under the lash.

To her "conquest" of "Elsass-Lothringen" Germany has said in effect: "I will not give you your freedom or equality

until I am sure of your love." Alsace responds: "I cannot love you until you set me free." Lorraine replies: "I am not of your family. I cannot understand your ways." Then Germany says to France: "We cannot be friends until you forget." And France answers: "You will not let me forget, and so I cannot."

Germans as a rule fail to understand the loyalty of South Africa to the British Empire after the unfortunate and unjustified Boer war of conquest. As a matter of fact, South Africa was treated humanly and thus bound by the cement of good-will. With a similar policy on the part of Germany after the war of 1870-1871, there would have been no "problem of Alsace-Lorraine." But statesmen of the type of Campbell-Bannerman rarely come to the front under the dynasty system.

In an article in the Deutsche Politik, Professor Martin Fassbinder is quoted as saying;

The French base their claims to Alsace on the fact that the Alsatians are attached in their hearts to France. This unfortunately is only too true. The reproach leveled at us, that we do not understand how to assimilate conquered territories is well founded, and it is a phenomenon which merits our best,attention.

In 1659 Colbert wrote to his brother, the first administrator of Alsace, exhorting him to treat the Alsatians better than the inhabitants were treated by their rulers. At the same time he urged the clergy to use their influence to induce the Alsatians to become good Frenchmen. The consequence was that in 1675, when the German troops entered Alsace, they met not with complete indifference, but active hostility on the part of the inhabitants of that province.

With us Germans, an administration of such a nature is impossible. Ours is a régime which admits of no change. Hence, when the functionaries of such a régime treat the inhabitants badly, it is difficult to conciliate them and even more difficult to assimilate them.

II

There are two main fallacies in German discussions of this subject. Alsace, with her republic of Strassburg and her ten free cities, never "belonged to Germany" in a proprietary sense. Germany indeed was little more than a geographical expression when through its own House of

Hapsburg, Alsace became loosely attached to the ramshackle "Holy Roman Empire," of which Austria was finally the chief heir. Through history, Lorraine has been mostly attached to France.

It may be that Alsace-Lorraine now "belongs to Germany," having been held by force in serfdom for forty-seven years. It ought to "belong to the Alsatians." In any event, it is not "a part of Germany," except as a bond-slave is part of his master's household. The territory of "ElsassLothringen" is "Reichsland," or land owned by the Empire, inhabited by "Deutsche zweiter Klasse" (second-class Germans) who are legally little more than squatters on public domain.

The second fallacy maintains that the people are German because of their original Swabian origin and because seveneighths both in Alsace and Lorraine speak in a Swabian dialect to children and servants while using French for other purposes. The question of language has no more importance in Alsace than in Switzerland. The essential to unity is community of experiences and aspirations, not of speech. Most educated Alsatians speak three languages. The leaders of opposition to Prussianism are not of French but German stock, largely from Upper Alsace, especially Colmar and Mühlhausen. The names of Waltz ("Oncle Hansi"), Boll, Blumenthal, Wetterle, Helmer, Preiss, Zislin, Froelich, Weill, indicate this.

In the words of Napoleon; "they speak in German, but they saber in French." "Being German, they are more obstinately French than any Frenchmen could be." A wise administration would never have sought to wreak its discipline by force on a freedom-loving folk. It would have sought rather to promote the Alsatian ideal of international friendship. If Alsace-Lorraine had been given an equal stake in government and the right to rule itself and to maintain its own customs, the "question of Alsace-Lorraine" would long ago have been solved. As matters are, Imperial Germany has forfeited all claim by trying to crowd its own language and discipline on an independent people which has tasted freedom, with a specialized culture

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