Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-01-26
Destruction Is Amazing,

mans life had depended upon COM
pieteness of the destruction.
destruction Is Amazing,
In the center of Lens a returned
citlzen was searching amidst the
ruins OF his store for we'll. down
which he had lowered valuable papers.
and he could not find the we'll. Even
so small and well defined an objective
was beyond his resources, destruction
was too complete. And the story of
Lens. was this. When the German
Ionnd he could not stay he resolved
that France should still be dependent
upon Germany for coal, that she
should still be crippled for an endless
time. So systematically he DESTROYED
the mines, the machinery, the dwell
ing houses. He took the furniture.
90 not know how words can de-
scribe the monstrous. the amazing
miracle of destruction he accomplish
ed in the Lens district
lie is gone now. But the problem
remains. He wasted the fields that
the peasants might not return. He
destroyed cities and the mines that
the industrial population might not
come back: that this region and this
portion of France might die, and now.
When his peasants arc returning TO
their undisturbed farms, to their un-
damaged industrial centers and their
iH'dCt factories, the people of north
ern France are still exiles.
hope my American friends will
think of the German desert which oc-
cupieS SO much of northern France
when the peace conference begins it's
work. If the French ask the posses
sion of the Saar coal district. once
theirs and stolen by the Germans in
1914. to replace the ruined coal fields
of Artois and Flanders. l trust that
the Americans will not see in this
demand French imperialism. but the
effort of France to resume the busi-
ness of life in spite of the German
EFFORT permanently to destroy French
industries. And in the same sense,
If there is discussion of compelling
Germany to supply labor to remove
the shells. plough the fields and open
the roads. / hope that the Americans
Will think that the French are not
seeking revenge, but way to repair
the most brutal of all injuries and
permit their exiles to return home
again; the exiles who, like the French
woman at Croisilles. have courage
but have lost everything else.
What Responsibility Means.
And in the Paris conference there is
to be talk of the responsibility. not
alone for the acts of war after the
contest itself came, but for the caus-
ing of the war. If only one could
translate into words that had a
meaning the fact of the dead and de-
serted battlefields. that shell-torn
KENNEL and from Sharpenburg, the
region that was once the Ypres sa-
lient! At least half a million men
died there. A few sleep in graves.
but for the most part they and their
graves have been ground up in the
n
bombardments.
A year ago every ridge, every slope
every heap of dust and ashes had its
military value and historic mean
ing. Men died by the thousand to ad-
vance a few hundred yards, but now
all the hills and ruins have been as it
were. demonetized. They have no fur
ther value. Half a million dead remain
but nothing for which they fought to
the end is worth a second thought.
nothing in the material facts. And the
Hindenburg line. the Somme battle
fields. it is the same thing i'll both cases.
million and half dead sleep be-
tween the User and the Somme, but in
the lands they died to hold no living
thing stays, save few prisoners and
their guards. The trenches disintegrate
in the rain, the barbed wire rusts in
the brown of the landscape. the snake
grass is beginning to bury everything
And for all this some one must pay
not as a matter of punishment. that is
another question; but some one must
pay in order that this part of the Ger
man plan may not prevail, that this
much of civilization may not perish
that this corner of France may not die
In Flanders, Artois, Picardy, you get
the full measure of the German fury OF
destruction. A more terrible force one
cannot imagine. 1t has wasted prov
inces and destroyed cities. Nothing
has been too small or too great &c
elude Germany run amuck. The pas
sion that is almost elemental in its
magnitude of destructive force at one
moment. seems guided by microscopic
vision at the next. One must see what
the Germans did to understand some
thing of what Germany was and may
be again when a few decades have
passed.
Would Have Americans Understand
/ have dwelt upon these circum-
stances at this time because it seems
to me that Americans must under
stand in some measure the mood and
temper of France today. 1t is the
tragedy which has not been abol-
ished by the armistice; it is the ruin
which no formula OF words and SEN
/ timents can abolish. The men who
| planned and guided this thing are in
the main alive and unpublished. AT
! least a million French women and
| children are still practically home
| less. Years must pass before the
! open wound which stretches from
Belgium TO Switzerland can be healed
I if at all, and it will remain an open
wound forever in the side of France
| If France. and not the Germans. have
| to carry the burden.
( And yet. save for the French in
Paris and out of it, one feels a GER
| tain tendency to forget this German
desert. The German is singing a new
| tune now. His humility is as COM
plete as his arrogance was year ago
| The French woman told me how her
! German master made her work in the
fields close up to the firing line, grow
| ing potatoes, and then allowed hel
| two a day to live on; yet the German
now imperiously demands that we
| feed him while his victims remain
without all that which they must