The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-12-02
e,ovd Gibbons Demonstrates That
with All His High oualiffca-
tions az Correspondent,
He is Better Lecturer
VIVID WORD PICTURES
Incidents That Told More Than Some
books, and a,verdict on Work
Of Americans That Must
Stand.

Floyd Gibbons, war correspondent,
soldier OF fortune, lover OF adventure,
student of the essential things in the
lives of the common people, popular
writer of stories of real life, especial
" army life, and as brave as he is
hrainy, demonstrated here Sunday
afternoon that he is also one Of the
hest half dozen platform lecturers in
this country.
He had good audience, in that
It was both appreciative and of con-
siderable size. He held it motionless
for fully two hours and then 1t
wanted more.
Floyd Gibbons spells success on
the platform by a remarkable sense
for balancing of values, aptness as a
Yelator of stories that give more real
information than an hour of didactics,
and word picturing that has never
been excelled in its broad line draw
ing scenes that are visualized like a
water color painting.
Word Pictures in Water Color.
The French kid on the end of a
projecting pier giving Pershing his
first welcome to France with his
shrill, falsetto, "Vive lAmerique,' .
was the first of these superlative pic
lures in words. There was the hos
pital ward with it's fourteen casual
ues; Pershing kissing the French
nag on the balcony in the Place Con-
eorde; the landing of the first Ameri-
can troops at San Lazare; the cap
ture of Mount Sec with the smoke
bombs-these were some of the
scenes thst few in the audience will
ever forget.
The story of Red. visualized
through bandaged eyes as a big, bluff.
strong soldier, who turned out to be
young and slight former keeper of
canary birds and trainer of gold fish,
and the snap shot of the artillery
commander in front of his marching
guns, told more of the miraculous
army training than any book has
done.
The Verdict Of an Expert.
Perhaps most important was the
verdict of this observer on the actual
place of the Americans in the whole
big scheme of the world war. Every
body feels that he has qualified to
give expert testimony on that
Wildly drawing the map, washing
in the terrain, and emphasizing the
dominant topography, Floyd Gibbons
presented a most interesting and dis
tinct moving picture of the advance
Of the Huns on Paris, always driving
before them the French and the Brit
ish, past one river after another over
the Chemin DIES DANES, until they
were only thirty-eight miles from
Paris, literally the capital of the
world just then. Then he showed
Foch selecting the old and tried
foreign legion of the French and the
first and second ! divisions of the
American regulars to stop the
Boches. He photographed in words
the occupation of the wood at night,
and then he gave the verdict on the
perfect case he had made.
Americans Saved France.
The American army saved Paris
and France in those three days by
stopping the Germans and breaking
the Rheims-Soissons salient.
Like most newspaper writer's, Floyd
Gibbons likes to let slip in his talk
occasional errors of English and of
pronunciation, and he became so
polite in France that he pronounced
many French words SO that his audi