The Washington herald., 1915-10-03

the midst of the big warning empires.
The roll of the great war powers
in the past that now are uphoidlng the
white banner OF peace in the midst
of this world conflict would be in
complete without the three little king
do,ns of the north. For like the Swiss.
the Dutch and the Spaniards, the Scan
dinavians long trod the ways of mar
tial glory and have sounded the depths
and shoals of military honor.
The Mediterranean and the Baltic
are the two fountains of European civil
Iization. Most of the great streams or
mankind that have poured over Eu-
rope and irrigated that continent. took
their rise in one or the other of those
seas.
AS Greece and Rome fell. the Medi-
terranean fell, whereupon a torrent of
Goths and Vandals, Anglos and Sax
ons swept down from the southern
coast of the Baltic to replenish the
land with fresh races of men. When
the empire they formed under the
crown Of Charlemagne subsided. civil
lization in the Mediterranean basin
ebbed once more, and then Europe was
inundated anew by human food
from the northern shore of the Bal
tic.
For the ocean of humanity always is
seeking a level. This process is going
on under our eyes today. only now the
migratory hosts are armed simply
with steera ge tickets and no longer
have to hew their way about the world
with battle axes. But a far greater
horde is led forth in a year by the
enterprising steamship agent than
followed Alaric or any Of the martial
chiefs of old.
From NorumbeEa to kiev.
Visitors to Boston may smile al the
statue of Left Ericsson as a vain boast
in bronze by the conceited and ex-
elusive Bostonians that their town
was the object OF a special voyage
Of discovery 500 years before the rest
of the country was brought to light
Nevertheless. the Mortimer were
ubiquitous in that eleventh century
and. in the course of their globe trot-
ting, they we'll may have taken IN
the Hub of the Universe.
it is certain they coIonized Green
land then, and visited Newfoundland.
whence it would have been but
short excursion to Boston. Sober his
rEH
trip about the year 1000 to a place
where the wild grape grew and that
New England probably is the Vine
land of the Viking song.
While Norumbega remains only the
tabled city of the sons of Eric the
Red. its legendary birth was in that
golden age of the sea rovers, when
they reared above conquered lands
those castle towers and cathedral
spires which remain the noblest leg
acies from the Normars. Until l saw
these l had not thought of coupling
I'D the Saga tales of Morse adventures
IN the New World with the more SUBJ
stantial if not more enduring monu-
ments Of their k,nsmen in Europe in
the same era. Nor had l appreciated
how wide swath the Scandinavians
cut in that eventful eleventh century.
For il was in the century of Lief
Ericsson's voyages that the Normans
we're busily laying the stones OF the
Chateaux and churches and abbeys.
whose unfading beauty still thrills the
wuyfarer at Mont st. Michel. az Caer.
at Fecamp ana iii other Normandy
towns II was then. TOO. that they
erected the Tower # London by the
Thames as warning sign of their
conquest of England in 1866. At the
same time they We're conquering an
other island on the opposite side OF
Europe, where that most beautiful OF
sacred edifices which crowns the
nights Of Aonreale above the city of
Palermo is lasting memorial of more
than 200 years of Norman rule in Sic
ily. Meanwhile the Swedish rulers o:
Russia were lifting the Greek cross
above their cathedral of ST. Sophia.
which continues to lure the curious
traveller to the long 4 abandoned capital
seven domes that remain to this day
the pride OF the old city of Kiev.
The Northman's Job.
In all their endless wanderinss, men
20 only where they are needed. They
are as subject as any commodity to
the law OF supply and demand. and
the tide of immigrants rises and falls
at Ellis Island with the ebb and flow
Of American industry. when mills and
mines are busiest and there are more
spindles and picks than men. when
there are rails to be laid and trees to
be felled. the vacant job draws its
aan across the seas from the remotest
carpathian hamlet or Sicilian farm.
Now, the job that called the North
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