The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-11-09

London, October S0-(Special. THE Of
ficer in charge Of Ypres has put UP this
placard among the ruins of the glorious
Cloth Hail, shattered by German shell:
NOTICE
This Is Holy Ground.
No Stone of This Fabric May Be
Taken Away
1t is a Heritage for All Civilized
Peoples
Within sight of this notice people hunt
( for souvenirs and then sit in the sun
and> drink beer. An English correspon-
: dent who has seen that sad exhibition of
human callousness calls them "Ghouls
of the battlefield"
Who are they? Befgians, who have per-
haps supped so full Of horrors in the
last five years that it comes natural to
them to live in a graveyard. French
so says Lieutenant General Bethune, "a
few English, many Americans. And
British soldiers were selling bogus SOU
venrs." Making holiday in a grave
yards
At zonnebeke, Zillebeke, HODGE and
I Houthulst, there lis no merry making
and souvenir-buying Those are the
hunting grounds for the souvenir hunter
with crowbar. The French and Bel
CLANS take no hand in this game-the
vandais are, say the British newspapers,
English and Americans, American Of
ficers among others. Here is no town
majors notice and no vigilant watch
man, and the ruined gun pits and gun
fittings are vanishing, stone by stone
and bit by bit. The Chinese salvage man
stands by and sees white men of Anglo
Saxon race pilfer on what is veritable
field of martyrs.
In Europe it may be true to say that
one can hardly find foot of ground
that is not someone's grave. Belgium has
been the battlefield of Europe since the
coming of the Romans and perhaps be-
fore. Countless generations of enemies
and allies of the native dwellers have
left their bones between the North Sea
and the Rhine vineyards, and no one
keeds them. The dead past has buried
it's dead But that we should forget
those whose graves are not yet green
is to write ourselves down less than
human.
The Belgians are coming back from
| exile; it is natural that they should look
upon the matter with different eyes from
ours. Americans are accustomed to wide
spaces and to feeling at home in whole
continent. They would quite naturally
| set aside battlefields as sacred places
to be kept unused. But to the Belgian
most of these blood stained fields are
primarily sacred because they are his
home, and the way to keep homes sacred
is to live in them. Anglo-SaXons cannot
demand that BelRlanS SnOuIu MAKE lHelI
homeland into vast museum because
other people have died there Belgium is
small country, very crowded, and its
sons do not wish to emigrate. They
must live in their country whoever is
buried under it. What they can do they
do. in tending the cemeteries where Amer
leans and British lie.
But Ypres is an exception. Before
the war it was, being very old and
beautiful and sparsely Inhabited, almost
memorial of the past. 1t is said that
it's late inhabitants are willing to build
their new homes upon another site, and
to leave the Cloth Hall ruins and the
unidentiged graves as a memorial of
the great war and those who fell in it
One suggestion is that King Albert
should be asked to drive all the money
changers out of this temple; another
that this ground should be given over
TO Britain as a symbol of its sacrifice as
the British graveyards in France are to
be British ground for ever.
Others think that Britain should buy
Ypres; but that is a plan which we'll
might wound Belgian pride. Can allies
who have fought for the freedom of Bel
gian soil without offense offer monoa
for it? Before ever we came there it was
a Belgian monument.
The minister of the interior has told
the Belgian Parliament that his gov