Omaha daily bee., 1918-08-11
That Fourth IN Paris IN 1918
A Pen Picture and a Prophecy From Ouer There
Stars and Stripes, Published in Frame

at the heart of the world when, all unex,,
pected and unannouncA, car drew up and
out got the premier of Britain and the pre-
mier Of Italy to sit them down beside the
premier of France and watch our boys
march by
$50 the parade passed in review. passed
and turned down the Champs Elysees, which
was just as fair to see then as 1t is today,
passed under the arching shade trees to the
Place de la Concorde. There were French
dragons, wonderful on their fine horses
with drawn sabers. There were French in
fantry, and the crowd went wild when they
saw that from every poilu's bayonet futtered
a small, perky American flag.
Il remember how every hat came OFT as
the American nurses passed, straight and
brave and true as steel Then, to the music
of Swords and Lances,' down the broad
thoroughfare i'll double column Of fours came
our. own boys, infantry, marines, artillery.
men, and all, with their helmets telling
whence they had come.
Il can hear the cheering now. Sometimes
lit seemed to be led by the American
wounded, who, fresh from some hospital,
stood grinning and waving their unbandaged
arms from the curb. And those American
soldiers who were able to see the parade be-
cause their work was in Paris yelled louder
than any one else, and there wasn't man
among them, from the highest to the lowest,
who would not have given all he had or
hoped to be just to be of that bunch that
marched that day in the Champs Elysees.
Overhead, French aviators looped the
loop and circled low-row flying straight as
an arrow the length of the avenue, now
swooping so low that the craning thousands
held their breath while the fragile, gay
painted wings seemed almost to Craze the
tossing tree tops. And the jamtned side
walks were like fountains of flowers so
steady were the streams of roses and hor-
tensias that hurtled up and out into the
street, till the columns advanced through a
very rain of midsummer petals
"All morning the skies had been overcast
but just as the parade dissolved in the Place
de la Concorde, and the French band paus-
ing before the high gates of the Tuileries
Spangled Banner, the sun came out from
behind the clouds and smiled down on Paris
Those of US who fingered by the band
snapped down our hands at the final note
and followed in its heels as it gambolled off
up the Rue Royale When the leader gave
the cue for 'Madelon,' war song all the
poilus knew and loved, the crowds from the
sidewalks broke their bounds, piled into the
street, mingled with the band, caught up the
chorus of the song. and all marched singing
to the Madeleine.
>"It was not till we scattered for chow that
we reali I'D the Germans had not played their
expected part in the festivities No boche
machine had ventured into the Paris heavens,
and the Fat Bertha all the more expected
because this was the holy fete day of Sainte-
Berthe, was silent all day long.
"All day long the Publications went on,
with luncheons and dinners and no end of
speechmaking, | suppose, That evening
Elsie Janis, whom we thought just about the
salt of the earth, put on such show at big
movie auditorium as kept 1000 soldiers in a
state of violent approval.
"All day long and far into the night trysts
were. made and kept under the trees. All
day long and all night Poius and Aussies
and Tommies and Yanks marched arm in
arm along the boulevards pausing from time
to time at this terrace and that to buy one
another drinks and each to swear that the
Others were the greatest soldiers in the world
Thus it went till the dawning of the fifth
marked the passing of the. greatest Fourth
in history"