The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1917-12-21

to escape the shells will ever again
be able to start life with their dwell
ings, places OF business and cultivat
ed fields mangled and devastated
One is persuaded that stupendous as
is the work Of destruction wrought
by twentieth century will be enor-
mously more gigantic still. Towns
that took years to make have been
shot to pieces in an hour.
l have heard of towns in our own
wild and woody west that have been
''shot-up." But--is surely the
last word in complete and scientific
perforation. IN July, 1914, it was
a happy, thriving community of So,
600 or 10000 inhabitants, a smiling
town, with a wonderful Grand
Place and picturesque Petit Place,
a noble town-hall Round the
the Grand Place ran a quadrangle
Of colonraded houses of surprising
architectural beauty For the rest,
the town was typically French, by
which l mean a complex of neat
! stores and dwelling houses, churches
and factories, schools and estaminets
! (cafes). Today there is not soil
tary building of any kind in the
whole town that is not entirely Or
partially wrecked. There is not a
single thing of wood, brick or stone
that is intact. Not more than 1900
or 1000 people live there now, and
they must hide in cellars most of
the time, lest Boche shells search
them out. Death turks in every
street, even though the British have
held it more than two years and ex-
tended their lines beyond it consider
ably during the past few months.
Though they have long since turn
ed the town into scraps Of its former
self, the Germans seem filled with
an Unsuitable lust to flatten out ey-
en- the scraps. You walk through
Grand Place ran quadrangle
walls by order of your army guide,
in perpetual danger that a souvenir
from Krupps will land at your feet
and send fragments Of you flying in
to the ethereal eternal But you are
only living the life that the British
garrison and indomitable little ci-
william rearguard Of 1900 or 1000
people-mostly old men and women
too fragile to seek safer abode fur
Their behind the lines-are living day
in and day out.
This thought occurred to me while
surveying the tumbled-down Cathe-
dral and mince-meated Town Hall
and the limitless field of desolation
and devastation living all around
them at. every turning. Why not
keep it just as it is today, pile of
glorious ruins, as World Museum
of German Savagery? Why not leave
it, stricken, battered and manned in
it's very structural limb, just as we
saw it this day three years after, for
the admonition, horror and instruc-
ton Of universe which has rushed
to arms for the overthrow of Liber-
tvs foe? There will be vast librar-
les of documentary evidence of the
Huns atrocities to educate and terri
fly posterity. But what are books
and descriptions and documentary
proofs compared to such an ocular
demonstration as threatened to loose
the tear-ducts of five prosaic Amer
lean observers today?
l was born and raised in an Indiana
town very much like dozens of
French towns which have been crush
ed beneath the merciless heeel of the
German army. There are Illinois
and Iowa and Michigan and Wiscon-
sin towns just like them, too. l |
thought of those towns this after
noon. l said to myself that e Es-
sens 17-inch murder-guns could ever
be planted within range of our own
smiling Western communities, the |
Kaiser and his Germans would spin. |
ter them as gladly, as ruthlessly, rs
completely, as they have demolished |
this beautiful town.
Pershing's men are here to help !