The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-17

and the four or five others like it in
the village over to its companion bu-
reau-the bureau of rehabiliment, the
human end of the work.
Find Original Owner.
Then it becomes the business of the
bureau of rehabiliment to find the
original owner of the house, if he is
alive. If he is alive and not in the
army, he and his family are probably
refugees in Paris or in England, or
in some other city or village in south
ern or western France outside of the
war zone The Red Cross brings the
family back to the partially restored
house; and with four or five other
families, the work of rebuilding this
community begins. In France the viii
Iage is usually an agricultural village.
All the farm workers within a five
mile radius live in the village. There
are no farm houses in France. And
the first work after restoring the viii
lage IS to get ready to plant crops.
That means providing farm imple-
ments, bringing in seed, restocking
the barnyard and provisioning the
family. When half dozen families
are reinstated in their homes, plans
for restoring other houses are fur
nished and some materials also. Then
other families are located and brought
back as their homes are ready and
their neighbors help the newcomers
to begin life.
The Society of American Friends,
in the restoration of French villages
and they are connected with the
American Red Cross thru a special
bureau so that all the Red Cross or
ganization is at the disposal of the
Friends and the funds and workers
hi
to go forward more speedily and eff
fectively with their plans.
Four Types of Villages.
OF course, all the thousands of
ruined French villages, towns and
cities are not of the type above de
scribed. But they do fall into four
general types: Those evacuated by
the Germans after occupation since
the summer of 1914; those on the line
to powder by the German guns (of
this type Verdun is an example,
ruin as complete as that of Pompeii,
yet no German has entered the town;)
those places which have been the
scene of fiuctuating battle line.
now held by one or the other
of the opposing foes; and, final
ly, those villages not far from
Paris from which the Germans
were forced after the Marine. These
wreck of the war storm than others,
tho frequently the Germans even in
their hasty retreat took time to burn
and bomb and plumber as they hurried
away.
With few exceptions the villages de-
stroyed in 1914 have been restored. at
least partially. But back of these viii
lagos are hundreds of desolate towns.
Some are mere heaps of ruins. Res
toration will be waste of time and
energy. But hundreds of villages may
be rebuilt. And the urgent need for
the restoration of these villages-the
need that has put the American Red
Cross into the work with energy-is
the fact that the former inhabitants of
these villages, nearly two million peo-
pie from Belgium and France.
are living abnormal lives in other
peoples homes, unable to find work,
and they are rapidly becoming used to
the life of the refugees. Aside from
the economic burden they have be-
come, they have created a serious So
and brothers and husbands in the war,
the whole unnatural situation de-
mands wholesome change.
Probably never before in the world
has humanity faced the problem
which France is facing this winter
seventh of the area of France is in
vaded. And that one-seventh of geo
graphical area pays one-third of the
taxes and furnishes more than one
third of the annual increase in the
wealth of France in normal times.
These people who have been the main
stay of France ordinarily are now in
two classes: Those who are too old or
too infirm to work. They are being
shipped back to France at the rate of
one thousand day thru Germany and
Switzerland for France to feed; and
the other class who have been held
captive and in slavery in Germany
and as fast as they break down from
undertaking, overWork and poor
housing. they too are being loaded
into cattle cars by the Germans and
sent thru Switzerland to France. So
that those thrifty French people
known as the Yankees of France. who
do so much more than their share to
create the wealth of France, now are
creating the burden of France.
Unemployed a Problem.
In addition to this population and
the hundred thousands three years
ago, France has also great ikIe
poverty stricken industrial population
that has come from the industrial
centers of northern France which the
Germans destroyed in their retreat
from the Marine. The shops and fac
tories and mills wherein these people
worked are scrap iron. France has
no capital to restore these industries
The men and women who worked in
these shops and factories know no
other trades than those that engaged
them before the war. And besides
there are not enough shops and fac
tories in all France to employ these
/ refugees So they are huddIed in
I lofts and collars and RcboOI b,,iIdi11s