Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-03-19

American CitiZen!"
He used the word protection"
with that curious, battling supersti-
ton which characterizes the type of
mind that confuses words with acts,
that considers problems solved when
the word that defines them has
been discovered and pronounced.
We could laugh at him, he was
so badly scared, but | could have
wept at the plight of a newly-mar-
ried pair-a youth and his bride,
who sat near, patiently awaiting
their turn. They had been school
teachers in the middle west. They
were on their bridal trip and for
the first time in their lives in Eu-
rope, doubtless for the first time in
their lives away from home. All
that the bridegroom had was
ticket which, as he unrolled 1t, re-
vealed yard on yard, in almost in
terminable convolutions, series OF
coupons-coupons for everything,
steamships, railways, trans, omnl-
buses, hotels, in short, one of those
tourist tickets that provide for ev-
cry need of a determined voyage,
themselves the itinerary and the
means of following it. And now,
in the universal cataclysm, the
young couple found their coupons
suddenly worthless: no one would
accept them, not a steamship, rail-
way, bus or hotel-and the BRIDE
groom had no money; all that he
and his wife had was invested in
that prematurely elongated ticket,
which was to have supplied every
possible human want, and to have
spared them every care and annoy
ance, so long as they did not depart
from the narrow, defined groove. of
travel it marked out for them.
Held up before me in the hand of
the groom, and allowed to trail out
its preposterous length in despair
ing impotence on the floor, it stood
to me as the pathetic symbol of
what long months of eager plan
ming and consultation of guide-books
and histories, of what conversations
with obliging and persuasive agents,
of what painful economy, of what
heroic and stoical self-denial, of
what hopes and dreamsi | can see
the bridegroom and the bride, sit
ting there, the girl looking into the
young husbands face with such ut
ter confidence, so far from that
mid-western home, with it's peace,
its calm, its naivete. The whole
scene was wildly present-the lit
tie provincial town, the high school,
the Sunday school, the Chautauqua,
the faint apprehension of the thing
called culture-my heart went out
to them. 1t was another of life's
little ironies for Mr.. Thomas Hardy
or a story for Maupassant, though
Maupassant with four thousand
naked words would have treated it
with his cynical mockery, his hard,
pitiless, cruel French wit. Stunt
lachrymae rerum! 1t was of a pa
thos beyond all tears, as is so much
of life, alas!
Everybody Suspicious
Among the Americans was a
young doctor from Chicago, whom
the war had overtaken in Ger
many, where he had been studying.
He had come through from Verviers
to Liege that night on a German
military train that are labeled
"Schellzug mach Paris" The train,
however, had been stopped, and at
the frontier the passengers had got
out and walked; some of the
women had ridden part way in a
peasants cart; trees felled across
the road and barbed wire entangle-
ments had stopped their progress,
and they struggled on on foot, lug
ging their dressing-cases. The night
was clear and warm, and they had
lrxy oil
roadside, resting; the horses were
picketed and the troopers were ly-
ing on the ground, smoking One
of the soldiers waved his hand at
the party as it plodded along. They
got to Liege and thence came
through to Brussels by train.
The young man was not only an
American, but a German-American,
and for that reason some of those
at the Legation insisted that he
was a German spy. Thus early
even we were affected by that pecu-
liar suggestion which produced its
phenomenon everywhere during
those early days of the war. Per
haps it was not so strange: the le-
CATION halls we're already crowded
with Germans; there were thou
sands of them in Brussels and
many of them we're spies, of course.
They we're there, Germans, whether
spies or not, badly frightened.
VOLTA un espion" some one
would cry, and the human pack
would instantly give chase. No
one, however, was hurt. The Brus-
sells police were tactful, kindly and
efficient. But suspicious were rife
even in the mildest breasts. There
was, as it happened, that very
morning, a Belgian priest who came
try. He came accompanied by an
other priest, old, gray and withered,
who, as l had the able shown in,
was left sitting rather disconso-
lately in the hall. l spoke of this
and asked the able if he did not
wish his colleague to come in; but
the able, leaning toward me conf
dentially, said: mo, 1 think he is
a German spy"
The able had come to tell me
that he had given refuge to four
hundred Germans in his abbey and
to see me, an able from the coun-
he wished me to take steps to have
them repatriated.
81 don't like Germans" he said,
but" and he relented, 81 feel
sorry for these poor folk"