Iditarod pioneer., 1916-01-01
HOW ZEPPELINS
 AFFECT LONDON
Uondon Letter to United Press)

AL-oiuoH AISttCi to oliitCu lCsoI
 It is Wednesday night September 8. Above the din of the orchestra there sweeps over the theater a cavernous bass boom ex"
 Zeppelin" whispered pretty girl sit ting next to a Scotch officer,
 "No," you hear him whisper, fits door banging" He's lying and knows it.
 If you knew what was transpiring in the street you'd be out there instead of waiting for the last act to end. Such a scene is being enacted out there as the old town of London, in all its rich thousand year history, never before beheld.
 The curtain goes down. You file out of the theater into crowded street. Traffic is at standstill million cries make subdued roar. Seven million people of the biggest city in the world stand gazing into the sky from the darkened streets. Among the autumn stars floats long, gaunt Zeppelin. It is dull yellow-the color of the harvest moon. The long fingers of searchlights reaching up from the roofs of the city are touching all sides of the death messenger with their white tips. Great booming sounds shake the city. They are Zeppelin bombs, falling, killing burning. Lesser noises, of shooting. are nearer at hand the noise of aerial guns sending shrapnel into the sky.
 "For Gods sake, don't do that" says one man to another who has just struck match to light cigarette. Whispers, low voices, run all through the streets
 There's a red right in the sky there our house may be burning" exclaims woman, clutchlng at 8 mans coat
 There are million houses in London; why ours particularly" he responded.
 A group of men talking French, gazing up from the street. They are in walters clothes and have rushed out from the supper room of one of the most luxurious hotels in the world
 "The devils" exclaims one, and then: We've got it-it can't get away; there's shrapnel all around it.
 "Oh, my neck says pretty girl Tn even ing wraps. ''1 cant look up a minute more.' But she does.
 All about you are beautifully garbed women and men in evening clothes. "Oh" and "Ah," long drawn out exclanations of admiration, like the sounds made by Amerl- can crowds watching fireworks, greet the brilliantly white flashes of shrapnel.
 Suddenly you realize that the biggest city in the world has become the night battle field on which 100000 harmless men, women and children live. Here is war at the very heart of civilization, threatening ell the millions of things that human hearts and human minds have created in past cen turies Mourners tonight will leave the side of their dead to look into the sky fear fully Little children who have said "Now I lay me" and have gone to sleep, will be awakened and rushed into cellars to save them from death.
 There are more cries. Good God, it's staggeringw A shrapnel flash breaks appar- ently near the great a!rship.
 But the Zeppelin moves on steadily.
 What roar of joy would go up from the millions of this great city if they could sud denly see the yellow object transformed into the flash of one gigantic gas explosion. Lit tie whte-gloved hands clap their approval at the Zeppe.ins near approach to death; white teeth sparkle in smiles; men roar with delight These men and women, flowers of twentieth century culture, have become ele mentel Dirty, bloody, battle mad soldiers feel thus in battle. Killing has been put into the hearts of the crowds. If the men up there in the sky think they are terrifying London they are wrong They are only mak ing England whitehot mad.
 The redness of burning building fills the sky. The dome of historic St. Pauls cathe- dral looms up against the redness You pass the old church in a side street. At the gateway stands the old verger, half dressed. It has been his duty for fifty years to guard the church against thieves and fires as other sextons have guarded it in centuries past. But he's got bigger job on his hands than any of them ever had before.
 The verger's white haired wife stands be- side him. They are talking with three girls, such as never come into the lives of church sextons except on nights like this. They are pointing out to the aged couple, with cheaply -jeweled fingers the slowly fading yellow form of the Zeppelin.
 We are all brothers and sisters in the streets of London tonight neither man nor woman, neither good nor bad-just human beings outraged, mad, unwilling to die. It is miracle that the great gas bag in the air has brought about.
 On the plinth of Chinese" Gordons mon ument in Trafalgar square sit soldier and a girl. She is tracing invisible figures on the stone pavement. His arm is about her; her face is bent to his. Maybe they've seen this Zeppelin tonight, but just now she's listening to the old story that will be new when the books telling the story of to- nights Zeppelin raid have crumbled into dust
 They typify London and England-un- changed one iota by the Zeppelin raid which only ended in the loss of twenty harmless lives.
 On the next day recruiting tripled