Evening star., 1917-10-07
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Copyright. 1915, by Meropoiitan magazine Co..
0N Saloniki the American consul. the
Standard OIL man and the war cor
respondents formed the American
q colony. The correspondents were
waiting to go to the front. Incidentally.
as we waited, the front was coming
rapidly toward us. There was Uncle
Jim," the veteran of many wars and of
all the correspondents In experience the
Oldest and in spirit the youngest. ana
there was Billy the Kid and the Artist.
The Kid 5eered at us, and proudly de-
scribed himself as the only boy reporter
who jumped from a city hall assign
ment to cover a European war.
.T don't know strategy" he would
boast, neither does the Man at Home.
He wants human interest stun, and l
give him what he wants. write e1-
cIusively for the subway guards and the
farmers in the wheat belt When you
fellows write about the situation they
don't understand 1t. Neither do you.
Neither does venizelos or the king. l
don't understand 1t myself. So. write
my people heart-to-heart talks about
refugees and wounded. and what kind
of plows the Serbians use. and that st.
Paul wrote his letters to the Thessa-
lonians from the same hotel where I
write mine. and I tell EN- to pronounce
Saloniki. eeka, and not put the accent
on the on. This morning at the refugee
camp / found all the little Serbians OF
the rockingham unit in American Boy
Scout uniforms. That's my meat. That's
home-week' stuff. You fellows write
for the editorial page and nobody reads
it. 1 write for the man that turns first
TO Mutt and Jeff. and then looks to see
where they're running the new Charlie
Chaplin release When that man has.
to choose between our military corre-
spondent' and the city hall reporter, he
chooses me-"
The third man was John. "Our special
artist" John could write news story,
too but II was the cartoons that had
made him famous. They were not comic
page cartoons. and before making up their
minds what they thought. people waited
TO see what their artist thought. So, 1t
was fortunate his thoughts were as brave
and as clean as they were clever. He
was the original little brother to the poor.
He was always giving away money. When
we caught him he would prevaricate. He
would say the man was a college chum.
that he had borrowed the money from
him, and that since leaving college this
was the first chance he had had to pay
1t back. The Kid suggested 1t was strange
that so many OF his college chums should
at the same moment turn up, dead broke.
in Saloniki. and that half of them should
be women.
John smiled disarmingly
1T was q large college" he exclaimed.
sand coeducational."
There were other Americans; Red Cross
doctors and nurses just escaped through
the snow from the Bulgars, and hy-
phenated Americans who said they had
taken out their first papers. They thought
hyphenated citizens were SO popular with
us that we would pay their passage to
New York. In Saloniki they were tran
sients. They had no local standing. They
place to eat. or wash. although they did
not look as though that greatly worried
them. or place 10 change their clothes. or
clothes to change. 1t was because we had
h0G fa Oh pv.A tAl A-l-
instead OF bench in a cafe. that we were
ranked as residents and from the Greek
police held permission to sojourn."
Corporation We % Wers only mS six Americans Z esons
against 800. 900 British, French. Greek and
Servfan soldiers. and 10000 civilian
Turks. Spanish Jews. Armenians. Per-
slams. Egyptians. Albanians and Arabs.
and some twenty more other races that
are not listed We had arrived in Salonih
before the rush. and at the Hotel Hermes.
room. The edge Of the stone quay was was
only forty feet from us, the only landing
steps directly opposite our balcony.
Everybody who arrived on the Greek pas
or who had shore leave from a man-of-
war. transport or hospital ship. was
xAked by our cameras. There were four
work table T m Was eaS esay to work. Hs anS wbas n,s
was the use? The pictures and stories
outside the windows fascinated US. but
when We sketched them or wrote about
Them. they only proved US inadequate.
All day long the pinnaces. cutters.
1tgs. steam launches showed and
bumped against the stone steps. ma
ards for fruit and fish. Red Cross
nurses to shop. tiny midshipmen to
visit the movies. and the sailors and
officers of the Russian. French. British.
their legs in the park Of the Tour
Blanche, or to cramp them under q
cafe table. Sometimes the ambulances
blocked the quay and the wounded and
frostbitten were lifted into the motor
boats. and sometimes a squad Of ma
rines lined the landing stage. and as
Q coffln under French or English nag
was borne up the stone steps stood at
salute. So crowded was the harbor
that the oars OF the boatmen inter-
locked.
Close to the stone quay. stretched
along the three-mile semi-circie. were
the fishing smacks. beyond them, so
near that the anchor chains fouled.
were the passenger ships with gigantic
Greek fags painted on their sides. and
Malta and suvIa Bay: black golfers.
white hospital ships burning green
electric lights. red-bellied tramps and
freighters. and hemming them in. the
snouse-colored destroyers. submarines.
cruisers. dreadnaughts. At times like
o wall. the cold fog rose between Us
and the harbor; again the curtain
would 9uQ0onIy De ripped hbunueF duu
the sun would fash on the brass work
Of the fleet on the white wings of the
aeroplanes. on the snow-draped shoul-
ders of Mount Olympus. We often
epeculated as to how in the early days
the gods and goddesses. dressed as
they were or as they were not, sur
Vived the SHOWS of Mount Olympus.
Or. was it only their resort for the
summer?
It got about that we had vast room
20 ourselves, where one might obtain
q drink or a sofa for the night or even
cash to cable for money. So. We had
many strange visitors, some half
starved half-frozen, with terrible tales
of the Albanian trail, of the Austrian
prisoners fallen by the wayside, of the
mountain passes heaped with dead. of
the doctors and nurses wading waist
high in snowdrifts. and for food kill
ing the ponies. Some of our visitors
wanted to get their names in the Ameri-
can papers that the folks at home
would know they were still alive others
wanted us to keep their names out of
the papers hoping the police would
think them dead. One. convinced 1t was
of pressing news value. desired us to
advertise he had invented poisonous
gas for use in the trenches. With diff
Guilty we prevented him from casting 1t
adrift in our room. Or. others had for
sale a secondhand motor cycle, or
would accept position as barkeeper.
or. for five francs, would sell state
49, Il