The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1918-05-06
nv MARIAN noNsALL pAvls.

BY MARIAN BONsALL DAVIS.
When you walk between rows OF
destroyed homes in the ruined villages
of France you always find something
left among the wreckage that speaks
intimately to your own heart. 1t may
he q broken flower pot With dried roots
still clinging; an image of the Virgin
still standing in her oval niche In Il
fragment Of a WALL baby's broken
cradle; twisted garden tool. All the
bayonets and incendlary torches and
guns of the invaders have not been
able to crush out something Of the
spirit which fingers there.
And they have not been able to crush
1t out of The tragic professions of
the homeless, as they are driven hither
and thither-sometim rs slaves by
their conquerois; sometimes to fee
where they will. from violence and de-
struction. Some day, as you walk
briskly on an errand through the
streets of Paris, you see group Of
them coming in, sow-moving, beWil-
dered. There is II terrible intimacy
about this sight, and most of all about
the little ones who have seen hideous
things ana are too young to know that
they are not common part of life.
Who is going to take care of them
ana their mothers, and these old, bent
people, who are such a detached, tri-
fling part of Frances million and a
hnI rpfupapa2
For three and half years France
mas been doing the best she could as
they poured in endless streams from
Belgium and from all the Invalid dis
,ricts of France. while she had to pit
her strength against that pushing Ger
man line which would have surged into
Paris through any break. But every
day they came in greater numbers, lost
ana helpless, from beautiful villages
and towns and cities that now are
heaps of ruins. But that something Of
the spirit was still not crushed out
II responded to the sunlight. Geniuses
like Monsieur Peltler and Monsieur
Mirman and the man who meets every
train that comes into Evian with the
repatriated, knew this.
Red Cross Co.operates.
The French commission of the
American Red Cross, With the $780,
100000 war fund behind it, on its ar
rival in Paris consulted with the
French government how it could best
help. And the glory of the American
Red Cross is the principle of cO-opera-
lion it established there, and by which
1t works. The first thing it did for
refugees in France was 10 make itself
the co-operator-and never by any
chance the rival-of all the exist
Ing agencies official and ncnoflicial for
their welfare. 1t put a grant Of 5,OO0-
200 francs (about Sl,000,000) in the.
hands of the French government for its
refugees. And it began to find or pre-
pare decent lodgings for the thousands
upon thousands of them squeezed into
Paris attics.
There had been wonderful initiative,
rharacteristically French, in many
cases in meeting these inpourings of
the homeless. The case Of Monsieur
Peltier and a group of gendarmes (who
correspond to our policemen is one
Of the great stories OF the war. Here
1t is:
One day-it was early in the war
the gendarmes Of two ACCOMPLISHMENTS,
or wards, in Paris received an official
telegraph that about 1,S00 refugees
would arrive the next morning for
them to take care Of. SO mo proyi-
slon, no money, no roof, no place to
put them, 10 anything, but 1880 of
them, nevertheless, due TO arrive the
next morning-and their responsibility
Monster Peltier, the chief Of one of
these wards called a conference.
First money! These gendarmes, or
policemen, put each Il hand in his own
pocket, and produced two francs; and
after the conference they told the
small shop keepers along the streets of
their wards and they added TO this
cooled sum for the start-0ff. Every
mes two francs on the table, there
rose the Questiop Of lodgings. That
vas the rub. Finally someone timidly
suggested the huge building that had
cen in former tiiacs seminary for
nrieats. in the famous old square of
81. Sulplce. 4 part Of It was being
lsed for museum. That question
titled!
Work OF Nj. Peltier.
n ttreascs end stoves We're rushed
4. Ana UhcH ,h-sc weak. frightened,
lazed people were b ought 70 lhe semi
laire the next morning by the gen
dai1nCS. there was water to wash In,
and food to eat. and mattresses To
sleep OH. So bcaan the famous Secours
dc Guerre. inspired and directed by