The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-04-30
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

IlLeU states ITO1n IltiIOlS"
 From that good day until this I have
 been wrapped up in maps, and so when this war broke out I began to collect maps and cut out every new one l saw i'm paper or magazine and paste them In
 a large book, but they came so thick and fast l had to abandon the undertaking.
 
 When ] read an article in daily. , weekly, monthly or book, I wanted to
 check up the story giving names ana places by reference to map, and in this way get sense of the proper location Of things. Some people seem to have sense of direction. My younger brother used to say when we were travellng to- gether in Europe that I could land in
 city with million inhabitants at sun rise and act as a guide before the setting
 of the sun.
 I trace it all back to my teachers hav- ing instilled into me in my boyhood a
 love of geography and set me to study
 ing and drawing maps, and thereby fix
 ing names and places firmly in my mem
 ory Now, far be it from me to boast, but I daresay that only few of you
 who read this can recall the name of the
 the world war, or call the name of the
 town in which it was fired, or even locate
 the country without the help of one of your boys or girls fresh from their geo. graphical studies.
 I am born map consulter. I have big globe on my library table, and l keep it whirling when I am reading or studying history, ancient, medieval, or modern. I found myself recently at the Baptist Ministers union. while Dr. Dick inson was giving a most interesting and helpful talk on philosophy, psychology and theology, travelling far away from what he was saying, for, spread out on the wall before me was a huge map of
 Palestine, and I was trying to figure just the places at which the English are en- camped before Jerusalem.
 I went from the conference to The Age Herald building and found Stanley, the managing editor, pouring over his new map of France, that he had just placed beneath the glass which covers his big, Inew. mahogany desk. q don't know which he is the prouder of the beautiful new desk or the lovely litde daughter which the stork recently left at his home.) Anyway. I soon vas bending over him trying to find where our boys are, for l am not satisfied just to know that they "are somewhere in France. We suc- ceeded in locating them on the extreme western line near the canal (name deleted by censor).
 Map making is the business of kings, but I fear that the country which tore to shreds scrap of paper will have to greatly modify the map which it made of Mittele Europa, with the Kaiser stand ing supreme in the middle of it. It's our business to bust up his remaking of the European map to suit his selfish fancies by land grabbing in the twentieth cen tury as openly as the robber barons did in the middle ages. A Kaiser-made map would only be another instance of
 an article made in Germany" which IS no longer to be permitted in the civilized
 world until he is conquered
 | have read with great interest the re- making ideas of the Pope, who came for
 ward with peace proposals in which there was to be a redistribution of territory, l It seems that he is not success as a
 map maker so far as the allies are con cerned. They automatically thanked him for his good intentions, but suggested that he was inexpert when it came to parceling out territory and a little bit too liberal to the central powers. Austria talks glibly about peace with annexations. She ought to be an expert when it comes to handing out territory, for she has gobbled bunch of lands in- habited by strangely assorted lot of | races If ever any people attempt to
 build another Tower of Babel, just leave 1 it to the Austrians, for when all of her varying nationalities with their polyglot languages can get together on a building programme, and are ready to sink their tongues into one. the tower can be com
 menced and built without friction. 1 I have also read many proposals coming l from the English, French, Italian and American side lines as to the final man
 which will emerge out of world cnce
 more at peace, but the allies are not at all harmonious or agreed as to who is going to be the chief draughtsman when l it comes to licking the completed map
 into shape, but Uncle Sam has intimated
 in a way that none of his partners can
 fail to understand that he proposes to
 have a hand in the drawing.
 | I am frequently hearing, Isn't there ! some way to stop the war;" Sure it's
 dead easy if the belligerents can ever agree on revised map that will suit all
 parties. All of which goes to show that
 if you want to get at the bottom of this 'war. take course in geography and in
 may drawing.
 l F. s.: Uncle Sam added little bi. to
 his map in 1898 and recently bought an
 island. lie says he has got all the. terri tory he wants. When the other warning
 ones can get into the same frame of
 mind, then the peace makers can get busy
 and put an end to the awful war. fear. however, it's a long way off, for land
 hunger is one of the hardest kinds ct hungers to satisfy, and the Kaisers mod est wish to have "a place in +ba ,,,~,.