The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-07-19
FRANCE EAGER FOR
RICH U. s. TOURISTS
DR.. Mary Lee Edwards, Back
From War Work, Brings
Urgent Invitation.
MONEY Is NEEDED BADLY
American Physician Encoun-
tered Sights She Says She
Never Will Forget.
MONEY Is NEEDED BADLY

wanted--American millionaire tour
ists In France.
This. DR.. Mary Lee Edwards says, IL
the chief desire in the hearts of French
men now, and they are hoping earnestly
that the United States will let down the
bars that make 1t difficult to get pass
ports. And DR.. Edwards ought to know.
for she has Just returned from finishing
up the Job which she, DR.. Caroline Fin
ley. DR.. Anna Won Sholly and DR.. Alice
Gregory, four physicians Of the New
York Inhrmary for Women and Chill
dren, iHaugurated when they headed
the first unit OF the overseas hospitals
which the suffragists financed and sent
to the other side.
DR.. Edwards was right in the thick
of the work for many months. often
near the front or right at the front
handling the forlornest of the refugees
and the wounded soldiers, and she says
that never again will she be able to take
for granted the ordinary things of life,
such as three meals a day and a bed to
sleep in. She has seen too many human
beings without these necessities over
there.
But about the need for millionaire
tourists
las you all know, the value of the
franc Is depreciating right along" she
said yesterday, sitting in her triE khaki
uniform, with the little overseas cap. at
national suffrage headquarters, III
Madison avenue, THE French are ter
ribly worried and say that only Amer
lean millionaires can save them They
love the Yankee doughboys and love to
take them sightseeing. but the dough-
boys haven't much money. So what they
need is large parties Of rich tourists
many tourists-to go over there and
scatter money as of old.
What Is there to see? Why, war
ruins or course, the food Is the great
difficulty-tourists couldn't expect to
rare high. But they would see things
such as no one mas ever seen and never
Will see again. I hope, after poor, desc
Grated France and Belgium have been
restored"
DR.. Edwards said that, unaccustomed
"a the French We - to women doctors
they accepted those OF the Overseas Hos
pitfalls gratefully. putting them on the
same footing as men and trusting them
as they would male doctors But tho
French declared that the women of their
country could never copy them.
French Women Are Different.
zone Frenchwoman said to me Yes
It is very fine. but you need not think
that you can ever make us into what you
are; the Frenchwoman is but an object
Of love- said Dr. Edwards.
There were many things about US that
the French simply couldn't understand ::
for instance, our habit OF getting right
down TO brass lacks when we struck a
town. They are leisurely; they like to
spend some time getting ready. We
never bothered to fix up.
when our unit went to Cambria, re-
member, we were put into a cottage that
had been half knocked down by a shell
and was all cluttered with broken bricks
inside. Well. they assigned US two
Boche prisoners and we Just set the
prisoners to work cleaning out the bricks
and we went right to work doctoring the
sick civilians. That seemed more i'm
portant than trying to make a neat Office
out of that ruin.
There was plenty to do among the
civilians. The skin diseases were the
worst. Lack of sanitation and the awful
conditions due to the war made the skin
troubles SO much worse than We had ever
imagined they could be that it almost
seemed as II they were new and horrible
affiictions that had Just come into being.
However. they were familiar diseases in
aggravated form.
The various units OF the overseas
Hospitals had a great deal to do with the
returning prisoners that was a large
part of our work since the armistice was
signed. Nothing was said in the armstice
as to how the prisoners should be dis
charged. and mostly the Boche Just set
them adrift. and often they wandered
about in the woods for days and slept IN
the trenches not knowing what had hap
pened.
TT is one of the things I want to for
get, how those poor poilus struggled into
Metz, starved, broken. dazed. hugging the
poor little box the Boches gave them to
keep their few possessions in knowing
their homes were probably in ruins. their
families may be dead or scattered.
"Often a pollu who came in at night
would die before morning came and be-
fore we could get to take care Of him