The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-03
DR. GR|FF|S MAKES TOUR OVER SOUTH Oriental Scholar Talks of Present Great War THE ORIENT A FACTOR Says the War Will Result in the First Great Congress in Which
 the Whole World Will
 Participate
THE ORIENT A FACTOR

1 Dr. William Elliott Griffis of Ithaca | N. Y, who spent Sunday in Birmingham | left yesterday afternoon for Atlanta. Dr. Griffis is one of the best known lectur- CTS and authors in the country and is | an authority on oriental topics. He vis- | ited the Central High school and the Margaret Allen school yesterday morn ing. Dr. Griffis spent all last week in Montgomery and was especiall pleased with the Alabama soldiers stationed there.
 "They are the best behaved body of soldiers I have ever seen in my life" he said, "and I have been seeing soldiers in all parts of the world all my life. I served through the civil war in a Penn sylvania regiment myself.'
 Dr. Griffis believe the great. war will last another year at least and that hun ger will finally decide the issue and bring peace. But the greatest thing about this war; he said. lis that upon it's conclusion it will bring about the as- sembling of the first world congress ever world will be represented. The oriental races-Japan and China-will take con- spicuous part and the peoples of the whole world will be brought together in a way that could not have been dreamed of a few years ago.
 ABILITY OF ORIENTAL tIt yet remains for the occidental to find that the oriental has a brain which is equal to his, but I have lived among them for 70 years and think I know something about them. Their minds are capable of just as great things as ours and the sooner we find this out, the bet ter for the world"
 Dr. Griffis made his ninth trip Of in- vestigation and study to Europe in 1913. ''The most highly civilized nation in the world is Holland,'' he said. This is true because their people have the lowest death rate in the world and more uni formly approach physical perfection. It is worth while to mention here that for 40 years they have practiced birth con- trol-a subject which one scarce dare mention in this country-they have no such thing as capital punishment and they have had chautauquas in full swing for over 125 years. No law is ever passed there until it is discussed and re- discussed in community meetings and elsewhere and the law never goes on the statute books until it has overwhelming public sentiment behind it.
 WELSH ARE REMARKABLE
 "One of the most remarkable peoples in the world to my mind are the Welsh. With a smaller population they have sent more men to the front in the present war than England, Scotland or Ireland They have cared for 75,0O0 Belgians and their miners have been the real backbone of the trench warfare in Flanders Wales and her people have given us Thomas Jefferson, William Penn and Roger Will liams-men with vision, men whose spir- itual insight has been such a factor in the worlds progress. Wales has given England Lloyd George for the present crisis and everyone knows the place he now fills"
 Dr. Griffis says he is 73 years old and does not want to make money-says he has a son in Wall street who can do that, but he does want to live to see the change that will be made in the world following the present war He says he loves to visit schools and partic- ularly to talk to students and young peo- pie and he says he has had such an en- joyable time going over the south this winter that he will certainly come again next winter if he lives,