Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-10
|TREVES
SOISSONS BLACK
War Cursed Fair French
City. While German
Town Prospered
U. S. SHOULD REMEMBER
In Parleys Americans Must
Bear These Comparisons in
Mind, Says Correspondent
BY EDWIN L. JAMES
Special Cable to Evening Public Ledger


Copvrioht. 1918, By Nc,o York Times Co.
Treves, Dec. 10.
Lest we forget" Here is Treves,
there is Scissors.
8S Here in Treves the lights are. burn.
ing brightly tonight. over across the
street from this pretty Porta Nigra
hotel musical comedy has just ended,
and out of the Stadt Theatre we'll
dressed crowds fill the sidewalks some
on the way to their homes, some to
the cafes and restaurants and dances.
Street-car bells are changing and bows
are selling papers and up from the
throng comes the sound Of laughter.
Walters in evening clothes are walt.
ing in the restaurants to serve Treves'
merry-makers. This is Treves. the
well-kept and prosperous METROPOLIS of
this sector Of the Moselle Valley
Seated here in a flower garden OF
Hunland my memory goes back to an
other metropolis, Scissors, the metrop.
oils of its part of the Aisne Valley.
There are no arc lights in Soissons
tonight. No merry crowds are com.
ing from the city's theatres. The lights
of no restaurants shine across the
gwell-parked streets. No walters in
sevening clothes stand with the prof.
fered wine list.
There is desolation in scissors. I
can see standing stark the two maimed
spires of its once noble cathedral
Il can see its torn and tortured houses,
once the beautiful homes of beautiful
northern France, now the habitat of
scavenger rats, if they haven't all died
of hunger. The clang of the street.car
bells is gone and of laughter there
4 Is none. The wars curse has ruined
the once-fair city.
That is scissors. This is Treves.
That is France. This is Germany.
can hear some weak.minded
brother say that the people Of Treyes
were not to blame for what happened
to scissors. l say that neither were
the people of scissors. To one who
has seen much of the ruin the boche
carried into France there is sometime
repugnant, something unspeakablv ar,
rogant and, withal disgusting, in the
prosperity and well-being of Treves
And people coming in from other Ger.
man towns tell me 1t is much the Same
II, many other places.
Untouched by the ravages of war
these German cities stand intact. their
ordered life going on in measured cir.
cles, The German soldier, demobilized
comes back to a home, a roof above
his head. His wife and children wei
come him to the fireside he left when
he started amuck in August, 1914.
IA The American soldier Is an awfully
good fellow. as kind-hearted as he is
brave. One sees him here in Ger.
many. lenient and moderate and in.
clined to say, "Why blame the folks?
\ The war is over And one thinks
that those soldiers and the folks back
home probably look at the thing the
same way. And SO one who has seen
much of the sufferings of France, and
is seeing much Of the arrogance of the
Germans, might wish to suggest, with.
out any desire to pick the bones, the
far from naked bones of Germany
that America, at least, until after the
Peace Conference, should bear in mind
Soissbns and Treves.