Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1918-12-03
Old RurGl France No More
Irwin S. Cobb in Saturday Evening Post

The France to which tourists will come
| after the war will not be the France that peace
time visitors knew. | am not speaking SO much
of the ruined cities and the RACED towns, each
mute witness now to thoroughneSs, as exempli-
! fed by the orthodox tenets of kultur. For the
most part, these can never be restored to their
former sembanee. Here Hunnish efficiency did
its damned work too well for it ever to be undone
| Indeed, | was told no longer ago than yes
terday, when went through Arras, lodging tor
shelter from ruin heap to ruin heap between
! gusts of Smelling from the German batteries,
| that it is the intention of the French government
to leave untouched and Untitled certain areas OF
wanton devastation, so that future generations
of men, looking upon these hel's quarter sec
tons, shall have before their eyes fit samples
of the finished handcraft of the Hun.
| am sure this must be true of Arras, be-
cause in the vicinity OF. the Cathedral mean
the place where the cathedral once was-signs
are stuck up in rubble piles or fastened to up
standing bits of splntered walls forbidding wish
tors to remove souvenirs or to alter the present
appearance of things in any way whatsoever.
sincerely trust the French will carry out this
purpose. Then, in the years to come, when
Americans come here and oehold this place
once one of the most beautiful in all Europe
and now one OF the fouest and most hideous in
all the earth-they may be cured of any linger
ing inclination to trust a people in whose veins
there may linger single trace OF the taints OF
France of tie future will never be the France
which once upon time was shrine for lovers
of beauty to worship at-was one great altar
dedicated to all loveliness-I am thinking par
ticularly of the rural districts and not of the
communities.
| base my belief in this assertion upon the
very reasonable supposition that after the
armies are withdrawn or disbanded-or, as in
the case of our foes, killed off or captured, or
driven back. as they are now being driven back
the peasants, in their task of making the
devastated regions once more fit for human
plentfully at hand and that of which the
quickest use may be made.
This means, then, that, instead of rebuilding
with masonry and cement and plaster after
the ancient modes, they will employ the sal
wage of military constructions. And, by that
same token. it means that ugly, characterlesss
wooden buildings with roofs of corrugated
iron, all slab-sided and angular and hopelessly
plain, will replace the quaint gabled houses that
are gone, and gone forever; and that where the
picturesque stone fences ran zigzaggng across
the face of the meadows and the centuries-old
plastered walls rose about byre' and hidden and
stable yard, will instead be stretched lines of
barbed wire nailed to wooden posts. The stuff
will be therein incredible quantites-and it
will be cheap; and it will be available for imme-
date use. once the forces Of the allies have
scattered. 1t is only natural to assume, there
lore, that the thrifty country 1Olk ana the clti-
zens of the villages will take it over.
For fact, in certain instances they are al
ready doing so. Last week up near the Flanders
border, in British-hed territory, I saw half
grown boy wiggling through maze of rdsted
barbed wire along an abandoned defense line,
like Brer Rabbit through the historic brief
patch; and when l drew nearer, curious to
know what sort of game he played all alone,
here in land where every game except the
great game of war is out of fashion, saw that
he was tearing down strands of the wire. And
he told me he was going to inclose his mothers
garden with the stuff.
Think of a French garden fenced in after the
style of Nebraska ranch yard! Also, | have
taken note that the peasants are removing the
plank snoring from the sides of old disused
trenches, and. with the boards thus secured, are
knocking up barns and chicken sheds, and even
make-shift dwellings,
Assuredly it will never be the old France
physically. But spiritually the new France
wearing the scars of her sacrifice as the Re-
deemer of mankind wore the nail marks of His
crucifxion, will be vision of glory before the
eyes, of men forevermore. like this smile as
SET it down in my notes. And | mean no If
reverence as I liken the barbed wire to the
Crown of Thorns and think of crosspieces of
ugly wood taken out of barrack or a rest billet
and erected into the shape of the Cross.