No one is more eminently qualified to bring to the American people the facts in the case of Alsace-Lorraine than is the Honourable Daniel Blumenthal. Himself an Alsatian by birth, he can speak from the heart on behalf of his brothers and sisters. Honoured by his fellow citizens with election to the high office of mayor of the important Alsatian city of Colmar for a period of nine years, he speaks with the authority of one who has the full confidence of those Alsatians who know him best. A member of the German Reichstag and of the Alsace-Lorraine Senate for many years, he speaks with peculiar knowledge of the Imperial Government's treatment of the conquered lands. Condemned to death eight times and carrying sentences aggregating more than five hundred years of penal servitude, all imposed upon him by the Imperial German Government because he escaped from the Empire to tell the world the truth about Alsace-Lorraine, he comes to us with the highest recommendations which the Prussian autocracy has power to give. Americans will read with unusual interest his testimony regarding the lost provinces of France. DOUGLAS WILSON JOHNSON. NEW YORK CITY, November 1, 1917. ALSACE-LORRAINE [Illustration: Map of Alsace and Lorraine. The darker shading shows portion of territory ceded to Germany in 1871.] THE PROBLEM OF ALSACE-LORRAINE The problem of Alsace-Lorraine began with the Treaty of Frankfort made between the German Empire and the French Republic, May 10, 1871. Beaten by the German armies, France, at the mouth of the cannon, was forced, notwithstanding the solemn protests of the inhabitants, to give up part of her territory. The Alsace-Lorraine problem has a three-fold character. It concerns Germany, France, and the World. France not having stipulated in the Treaty of Frankfort any clause as to the treatment of the people of Alsace-Lorraine now become German, the German Empire alone had the formal right to decide their fate, and it is _vis-à-vis_ to Germany that Alsace-Lorraine must make its claims. The question of the rule of Alsace-Lorraine became a problem of the internal policy of the Empire, and therefore a purely German affair.