lves.

I beg to call the attention of the reader to two sentences of this
protestation:

"Europe cannot allow a people to be seized like a flock of sheep,"
wrote the deputies of 1871. "People are not mere goods which may be
sold or with which you may trade," proclaimed the deputies of 1874.
Now you will find, nearly word for word, the same thought expressed
in the message of President Wilson to Congress, when he wrote: "No
right exists anywhere to hand peoples about from sovereignty to
sovereignty as if they were property."

That right does not exist, and it is because that right was
outrageously violated in 1871 that France wants Alsace-Lorraine to
come back to her. It is because, in 1871, Right has been wronged that
today Right must be reinstated.

Some people have spoken of a referendum. Why a referendum? Was there
any referendum in 1871? And how could there be a referendum? How could
you include in this referendum the hundreds of thousands of Alsatians
who have fled from German domination? How could you exclude from this
referendum the hundreds of thousands of Germans who have come to
Alsace?

The referendum was rendered by Mulhouse in 1798. Will that town be
obliged to vote again? And how many times will it be obliged to vote
for France? The referendum was rendered by the whole of Alsace and
Lorraine in 1871 and 1874, by their elected deputies, when they
unanimously protested against the German annexation.

It was rendered twenty years ago by the census which was taken by the
Germans themselves in Alsace. According to that census, in 1895,
notwithstanding the fact that the teaching of French was prohibited in
the public schools, there were 160,000 people in Alsace speaking
French. And five years later, in 1900, according to another census
there were 200,000 people in Alsace speaking French. And of these
200,000 people, there were more than 52,000 children.

The referendum was also rendered by Alsatians who, before this war,
engaged themselves in the French Army, and became officers. According
to the official statistics of the French War Department, there were in
1914 in the French Army 20 generals, 145 superior officers, and 400
ordinary officers of Alsatian origin. On the other side, in the German
Army in 1914, there were four officers of Alsatian origin.

And finally the referendum was rendered only one year before the
present war, in 1913, when Herr von Jagow, then Prefect of Police in
Berlin, made th