New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-08-13
Cambridge at War
By Sarah Addington

" AMBRIDGE, Mass, Aug. lin the
shade of the Washington Elm,
where the commander Of the first
American army assembled his troops
July 2, 1775, new barracks for American
sailors of 1918 are to-day being built to
break up the greenness of the old Cam
bridge Commons with their pine splatches.
Harvard's Memorial Hall, which stands as
a monument to the Harvard men who died
in the Civil War, stands also
mess hall for navy radio students of this,
the Great War. Cambridge Parish Church,
having weathered Americas first war in
her youth and the Civil War in middle age,
now once more, in her old age, stands up
against war, her flags flung for the third
great epoch.
For this is Cambridge. Having worn
armor before, the wise old town puts on
her modern plate, and somehow there
seems to be less creaking than when-well,
Cochocton, Ohio, does it. Cochocton has
taken pot-shots at Indians and called it
war, but Cambridge knows for all there
is in it and experience has served her we'll.
The Cochoctons Of the country are living
up to their new experience bravely, but old
New England wears the war mantle with
dignity, almost grace, that the West in
its shocked alarm at the unaccustomed can
not muster
At first it seems as if Cambridge were
zoned off; as if the war had freakishly de-
ci6od hot do CHI ctr
place, and that part of the town be de-
clared sanctuary. Here's Brattle Street,
where old ladies with black umbrellas still
walk past Longfellow's house exchanging
recipes for poultices and brews; where tall,
straight flowers bloom with never a fear
of nterloping war vegetables; where house
maids appear at in the morning to bur-
n.sh the knockers and whisper the latest
family gossip. Brattle Street, indeed, is
deep in summertime and peace.
On Brattle Street you may have your tea
in the home of the Village Blacksmith,
where the flick of leaves at the window,
the brooding garden outside and the quiet
old furniture and sunshine take you gently
but surely out of world of war into
heaven of peace. You stare at the tea
leaves and listen to the clink Of ice. The
Cock Horse carries you off and off-he's
toy stuffed thing on the mantle and the
tearoom is his namesake-and then a curve
of khaki brushes around the door and you
remember again.
So the zonng Is not absolute, after all.
There will be rows of quiet old houses,
with hem of hedge and spread of green
lawn, and then you come upon ex-President
Eliot's home, done to the last fence in po-
tatoes and otl er war rations. Longfellows
house is quite as it always was with its
green laid out down to the Charles as the
school children have decreed that it always
shall be. You might expect to see the poet
come out of the door any minute--until a
sailor and his girl come gigging along, pos
ing in front Of the house for the camera
they carry.
But these touches Of the war in the quiet
streets only foretastes Of the war as it
proclaims itself just around the corner at
Harvard Square. For there the navy, in
all its glory, holds forth. Actually there
are only thousands OF radio students and
ensign candidates at Harvard University,
but to anybody short of a human adding
machine the MILDLY blouses number mill
luis He navy SWarmS into college res
taurants, stands in punches all over the
square, crowds the postofice, until you
can't imagine that Harvard was ever any,
thing but a naval training station.
All day long the stream of blue and white
flows through Harvard Square, while the
summer students seek the out-of- the-way
corners for their everyday affairs. The
tiny stores bulge and boil over with the
rush of business; the sidewalks never
clear; yet Cambridge is never wild-eyed in
all this congestion. She has taken the
sailors to herself with calm and under
standing. Their interests are hers and she
waits on them and makes room for them
like hostess long accustomed to emcrgen-
cies. And when the lonely notes Of "Taps"
sound over the campus civilian Cambridge
goes to bed too, for she has to get up at
revellle in the morning to be on the job
again.