The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-29
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

and sets the world talking and wondering about it. I wonder how many of you who read this ever even heard of Plume before Italy began to fight for it at the peace table and President Wilson started old world diplomacy by making a state ment about it?
 I confess that I know of it only in a vague way, and so when my namesake asked me to tell him something about it. found that I was handing out glitter ing generalities. Now frequently you can get by man without being definite but not so with a boy, for he demands de- tails, dates and facts, for his mind is centered on the concrete and recks not of the abstract.
 l hnd to go on search for information to satisfy the inquiring mind of a lad in his teens. I first tackled a small en- cyclopedia for quick reference but the name was not even listed. I tried two others of much larger scope but could find only scant comfort. It appeared to me that they were absolutely indifferent about Plume. I then tnckleds three or four different geographies and about the completest data could get was one line in one of them saying, "Fiume is the sea- port of Hungary"
 then began to look through my books of travels and among those about Aus tria-Hungary or the Balkans, for when I get started on the track of a bit of knowledge I generally pursue it until I find something. My trouble now is I To- cated so much about Plume, and Crotia- Slavonia that I can't possibly crowd it into one column and so will just have to use my 'eliminator and try and give a few salient features so that the next time you pick up paper and see the name you will have some idea of it's history and present status.
 Before the war it was royal free town and port of Hungary; situated at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Quar- nero an inlet of the Adriatic, on a small stream, the Fiumam, 70 miles by rail s. E. of Trieste, and 375 miles S. w. from Budapesth. It was also in 1909 connected with Karlstadt by the famous Maria Louise highway. In 1890 it's population was given as less than 30,0OO, but in 1900 it is hard to get at the number on &C., count of postwar conditions which are abnormal.
 It may be Illuminating however to an- alyZe the nationality of those living in it at the last census in pre-war times, for it will at least give us something definite to base any opinion we may ar rive at after having read the text of the Presidents statement on the Plume question which sent Premier Orlando and his entourage back home to lay the situa- ton before the Italian Parliament, and for the time being to hold the signing of the peace terms in abeyance.
 
 Geographically, Plume belong to Cro- tia; politically the town, with it's terri tories of some seven square miles be- anne part of Hungary in 1870. But at present Austria-Hungary no longer exists. and so it proposed that the Qualifications which the Austrian government con structed there shall be raized and perma- nently destroyed. Even under the pact of London Plume was not included, but there definitely assigned to the Crotians These are the uncontroverted facts.
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 President Wilson says: Plume must serve as the outlet of commerce, not only of Italy. but of the land to the north and northeast of that port; Hun gary, Bohemia, Rumania and the states of the new Jugo-Slav group. To assign Plume to Italy would be to create the feeling that we have deliberately put the port upon which all those countries chiefly depend for their access to the Mediterranean in the hands of power of which it did not form an integral part and whose sovereignty. if set up there, must inevitably seem foreign. not domes- tic or indentified with the commercial and industrial life of the regions which the port must serve.
 
 Not word about the harbors, for there are several including the Porto Canale, for coasting vessels; the Porto Baross, for timber, and the Porto Grande shell tered~by the Maria Theresa mole and breakwater, besides four lesser moles, and flanked by quays, with their grain ele- yators. Even before the war large sum had been set aside to greatly inn prove Plume as seaport town.
 Fiume is no mushroom town born of the war, but is supposed to occupy the site of the ancient Liburnian town Tersa- tica; later it received the name of Vito- polls, and eventually that of Fanum Sancti Vita ad Fluem, and I suppose rather than to handicap it the name was later shortened to Fiume It was de- stroyed by Charlemagne in 799. and it has been changing hands ever since, So that it is no new thing for Plume to be made the football of rival claimants. Maria Theresa once had the disposition of it. then Napoleon got it.. but the British took it away from them; and now in the whirlagig of time, the Italians are sus- nicious that the French and the Eng fish have gotten together and by the afG of America are scheming to snatch it out of their hands
 said something awhile back in this story about analyzing the nntionali-