Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-05-26
At Trlest
Eleanor Franklin Egan in the Saturday
Evening Post)

l hardly expected to find Triest a cheerful
place, but | was not prepared for quite the de-
gree of unpleasantness in the atmosphere that
encountered. The impression instantly made
upon one is that nobody cares whether he does
anything not. The place is filled with Italian
officers and troops, and a large part of the
population is Italian But the people of the serv-
ing class at least are Austrian and Slav and they
exhibit dull sort of antipathy toward the
stranger, which expresses itself in indefinite
reluctance toward any kind of association with
him. They look browbeaten and dispirited and
act as though they anticipated rebuff at every
turn
had come to this particular hotel because
| knew all the representatives of the American
Red Cross and food administration were living
there. In charge of the reception bureau there
was very casual young Austrian-the room
clerk we would call hinl-who could not give
me room under any circumstances because he
had no rooms. The hotel was already over
crowded. But he could put me in bathroom
with cot bed for the night, and tomorrow
maybe
And there l was trying to choose between
the alternatives of sleeping in bathroom and
tarlng forth into the wet wntry night in search
OF another hotel. | was about to decide in favor
OF the bathroom when along came Lieutenant
Drain This middle aged young American is d
tar n from Monmouth, III. | did not learn this
until later, but | at once that he had worked
out methods OF his own for getting along in
furrin parts. He was in Triest as aid to Colonel
NJ -lntosh, also of Illinois, the officer sent by
Mr. Hoover to superintend the receipt and d-
rect the distribution of all American cargoes of
was expected and they had been looking for
me for week; and was l all fixed up?
| spread my cards out, so to speak, and he
called it raw DEAL Then he went up to the
little Austrian and said few words among
which / caught: Seventeen kinds of \ You
Lro RIO X ii, La1a
to y Friend of ours y * You loosen up x
Never mind who you've reserved for 4
Turn somebody out y Attach a first-class
room to that bathroom and we'll be perfectly
satisfied"
And there was more that I did not hear: 1t
worked; and with broad smile on his weather
burned countenance the lieutenant turned back
to me and said: We'll, that's all right If you
want something in this town you got to knock
somebody down and take it away from em
But you mustn't blame these poor devils if
they act little SUPERIOR" he continued. They're
not superior, really; they're merely down
hearted. The wops are treatn' em like lot O.
bad peanuts and it makes 'em feel disagreeable
They can't call their souls their own. The pro-
prletors of this hotel are Austrians and they've
had orders to get out. The clerk who was behind
that counter few days ago has been deported
Things like that happenin all the time You
can't expect anything very first class in the
service line under circumstances like that can
you? But they've got nothin' against US Amer
leans, because we treat em white and we expect
'em to treat us white without dom any crawlin'
round about it."
We sat at table in a deserted dining room
and he told me about the situation in general
No American troops in Triest; no British; no
Frenchmen only Italians All the others at
Fiume and down the Dalmatian coast An
American battalion at Cattaro, with orders to
proceed to Genoa for transportation home to the
good old u. S. A. Some fellows have all the
luck And the Jugo-Slavs begging for more
American troops. Want us to take over all the
police jobs No good. Our boys won't have it.
Let 'em fight it out by themselves. But don't
you worry about the Slav boys Good stuff
American detachment at Fiume. Well go down
food job; others fussu round in Paris about
Hoovers got things moving; ship in today with
5000 tons American flour. Fats comm in, too
pork and canned stuff. People up behind the
Alps 1ivin' on roots and herbs. Children passn
out like companies O choir boys up to the Great
White Throne. Rotten!
"Wat till you go down the line with me.
I've seen it. The outside world knows nothing
about this situation and we've just got to get in
with tie food. And now railroad strike
and us fellows just achin' for nothin' but to
get home. We want to go home! The fellows
still attached to their reg ments are the lucky
boys They'll get sent home and mustered out
if they live long enough, but being detached and
put on one of these waysde jobs is the worst
thing that can happen to a man.