The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1917-11-28
PROFESSOR TELLS
OF TRENCH VISIT
Views DesoIation Wrought by
War on Flanders Battle
Front.
SOUL OF YPRES LIVES ON
Town, Which Has Been Throuqh Two
Great HeIIs and Many Lesser
Ones, Is Symbol of Tragedy
of Belgium.

Knoxville, Tenn.-How long will the
wal last?
The best answer to this question
heard along the Flanders battle front
by Prof. George Herbert Clarke, who
mas returned to the chair of English
at the University of Tennessee, was
by a South African, who remarked re-
fectively: "Well, sir, / can't rightly
say; but it looks to me as though this
ere war as settled down now into a
sort of instichOoshun."
Professor Clarke ventured to ask
the question all along the firing line,
How long is a piece of string?" re-
torted an English statesman.
"a certain major did me the honor
to invite my own conjecture" Profess
sor Clarke says, land, still better,
agreed with it; but 1 found, for the
most part, the expected wide diver
sity of opinion"
Another interesting question arose
on board ship during Professor
Clarke's return from Europe: Is a
ship safer than the trenches? Ger
tain Canadian officers on the boat ar
gued the negative of the question, but
the university professor was stanch
for the affirmative.
Less Danger in Trenches.
Canadian officers said that there
was less danger in trenches because
shells seldom struck the trenches, and
the shot usually went over the heads
of the men. Bit Professor Clarke was
of the opinion that there is less risk
in a ship on the ocean, even though
the kaiser's sea sharks, submarines,
menace vessels, and should a boat be
torpedoed, it would probably not be
long until passengers were bound for
Davy Jones' locker, yer if they were
in lifeboats or life savers.
The desOlated town of Ypres was
visited by Professor Clarke while in
the war zone. "The American imagi-
nation has been deeply touched by the
tragedy of Belgium" he says, land,
with the exception of its brutal protag-
onists, all the world shares that pity.
cypress is it's symbol. The towns
body is denuded, dead. 1t has been
l. lOdSl WV SlSot hSiio ohd nan iSo
ser ones, but it's soul lives on, intact.
The town mayor impressed me as pre-
cisely the type of nan to govern Ypres
today. He is it's military mayor, a ]
sort of father-and-mother to Ypres, ,
brave, broad-shouldered Cornishman,
who has risen from the ranks, and
who administers the affairs of his
hororrh with a nriIn and una1
that are not short of beautiful. He is
not wholly obsessed by military val
les; he does not wish the visitor to
miss the rare places of Ypres that are
still, in their grim settling, more or
less visible. ~A 4erEs
'"The other day he helped a Bel
gian to discover his little hoard Of
that had been buried in the
own during the first bombardment.
shows firm judgment and instant
'ympathy as each is needed. If Ypres
S Belgium, he-English as he isis
brave, steady, enduring and
Onfident. Looking up whimsically at
shell that seemed to me to burst
Incomfortably lei (but then, they
II sounded like that), he remarked:
All, high explosive; l thought as
1uch. Perhaps you had better be
ding now And we went with a sense
f abiding regard for this sturdy sol
Ter, while a deafening crash close by d,
nnounced that the British guns had
omething urgent to say to the enemy,
0mething that could not wait" I
A Dantean DesoIation.
The word Somme similarly has ex- Z
anded into a novel and grotesque :
7mbol, Professor Clarks says. "For
le Somme is a Dantean desolation,
ltending mile beyond mile-a DESC
ton of splintered tree trunks,
woebegcne boughs, churned !,
D subsoils that look like plague spots :