The Days of a Man 



not parliamentary was constitutional. Moreover, he 



said: 



tf 



There is no question of Alsace-Lorraine: the country is 

 German by tradition, by language, and by conquest. Those 

 who do not like German rule are free to depart; the others 

 should be loyal Germans. Our trouble comes almost wholly 

 from French journalists. It will subside in time; fifty years 

 is a very long time in the life of a woman, a very short time 

 in that of a nation. 



And he showed with patriotic pride the vista of 

 fat Prussian buildings seen from his office window, 

 the work of the German government. 



At Coimar Descending next at Colmar, we saw at the station 

 three clericals about to leave on a train. Thinking 

 that one of these might be the noted nationalist 

 leader, the Abbe Wetterle, 1 to whom I had letters of 

 introduction, I asked them if they knew where the 

 Abbe could be found. The looks of arrant disgust 

 this question brought to their faces plainly showed 

 them to be "German-minded." 



Wetterle is a little man, frank and cordial in 

 manner; I should certainly not take him for a "fire- 

 brand" (the mildest term the Germans applied to 

 him), though a French statue in his office revealed his 

 sympathies. He introduced us to his friend, Jean 

 Jacques Walz, better known by the pseudonym of 

 "Hansi," or more often "Oncle Hansi" an original, 

 restless spirit, a water-color artist of great skill, and 

 the author of stinging cartoons, the best I saw in 

 Europe. One which hung in his private studio repre- 

 sented Wetterle in jail, a slender figure peeping from 



1 Now (1920) a member of the French Chamber of Deputies. 



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