Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-07-06
OF $4,000 HOUSES
OF RHEIMS But "a
WERE UNSCATHED.
Citizens of Famous Old French
Town Now Make Former
German Trenches
Their Homes.

Wenty thousand people HdVe
returned to Rheims. There are
only few houses fit for habitation
and hundreds of these people are
living in French and German dug
outs north of the city. Others are
camping out in tie ruined homes of
which only the walls and perhaps a
corner OF the roof remains. Still
others find shelter in dormitory
prepared in a large schoolhouse.
The city sells kitchen utensils,
stoves and bedding. In front of the
partially restored railroad station
is a row of small pushcarts which
are rented by the returning Remois
to transport their belongings and
scant luggage to place of shelter.
Sightseers are pouring into
Rheims and for their accommo-
daticn special trains on a fast
schedule are run from Paris. 1t is
rather humilating to be obliged to
RECORD that some of these tourists
complained OF the food and Of the
discomforts of a visit to Rheims,
and this in face of the desolation
and suffering of the people whose
ruined city these joy-riders come to
view merely as spectacle.
But IA Houses Unscathed.
Photographs have given every
one in the United States an idea of
how a row or group OF houses IN
Rheims looks to the beholder. But
to get any sort of conception of the
ensemble you must walk through
the street of the same thing, till you
suddenly find yourself getting sick.
Before you is a stately facade
which turns into a CHASTITY skeleton
on closer view. Out Of that heap
of rubbish in the street protudes a
half buried doll. Upon the uncer-
tain wall, above the line of the sec
ond story, is shelf or two, the
crockery on them untouched Here
a graceful stairway runs off into
space. Scarcely a house that is not
a hopeless ruin, and every house
once home. 1t is said that of the
$4,000 buildings in the city only
IL escaped unscathed. ~
Next to the cathedral the most
visited place in the city is the hos
pital run by the American fund for
French wounded and the Women's
overseas hospital organization.
Here are more than $50 beds
sheltered in half destroyed group
of buildings.
Forty American women-doctors,
nurses aides-are taking care OF bed
patients and are attending 200 peo-
pie a week in the dispensary. lnjur-
les from falling walls and accident
ally exploded hand grenades add to
to the usual ailments to be treated.
The municipal clinic burned up a
few days ago just as it had got
fairly started, thus increasing
the demands upon the Ameri-
can hospital and dispencary.
The American fund automobiles
seem to be the only ambulance and
hospital supply service available.
Those Americans who think that
1--WE have done enough for France"
need not only see the work done by
the American fund emergency hos
pital at Rheims in order to revise
their opinion. :,
The American memorial hospital
to be built here cannot possibly be
completed for year, great as is the
need for it at the present time.
Until its doors open the Rheims
must depend upon make-shltt hos
pitfalls as we'll as improvised public
utilities of every kind.
That the Americans have come to
the rescue so many times, are now
making ready to build permanent
hospital amid the ruins and endow
ii in perpetuity, in honor OF their
own dead as we'll as to aid France,
is perhaps the greatest inspiration
the Remois have. 1t is an encour-
agement to believe that if not for
the present generation. then tor
their children Rheims will be
restored. Without this belief the
present desolation would crush
even the stout hearts of these peo-
pie who have come doggedly back
to the ruins of their homes, but are
utterly unable to bring any order
out of the chaos of destruction that
confronts them.