Republican farmer., 1919-01-31

Accompanied by Mrs. Wilson, Ad d miral Grayson and a very small party MT Wilson left the Murat residence early today and motored to Chauteau Thierry, where lunch was taken. The party then proceeded by motor to Rheims. passing through many rum ed villages and along the old fighting lines. After visiting Rheims the presidential party boarded special last part of the motor trip was made train and returned to Paris. The 1 in a snow storm.
 1 The first fighting ground was reach ed as the party neSred Gelleau wood, | immortalized in the history of the war by the gallant fighting of Ameri- | can marines. The motor cars turned off the main roads and crawled peril ously through back lanes to bring the | President close to the place where the 1 fighting took place. The farmers | were blowing the shell cratered fields as the President stood beside the graves of one hundred or more Amer ican boys who gave their lives at that point and looked across the strategic INalley to Belleau wood, a mangled mass of tree trunks and underbrush, marines, after whom the French gov ernment have named the place. | Colonel Edward Nj. Watson, who !bommanded an artillery battalion in | the fight and was later chief of staff of the Seventh seventh Division in the Argonne fight, stood beside Presi- ilent Wilson and Brigadier General William W. Harts and told the story
 bf the battle.
 Then MT. Wilson drove up the hill
 over which the American troops smashed the crack Prussian divisions mustered there to crush the green
 horns' and where the advance on Paris was checked. This was near Chateau-Thierry. Mir. Wilson saw the
 ruins of bridges over which the Amer
 jeans thrust back the enemy line and
 the she11-marked houses which sur
 Vived the battles
 The mayor of Chateau -Thierry
 greeted Mir. Wilson. who responded
 quite informally. He then drove or
 towards Rheims, passing along the ole , battle line between long lanes ot
 barbed wire entanglements now rust.
 ing away in the first winter of peace ] between long muddy trenches reached
 over the hills and down into hollowt as far as the eye could see and pas the wrecks of dugouts, ammunition , Fdumps, aviation sheds, hospitals, bar , racks and all the other litter left b! the defeated enemy in his flight. ; American, as well as French, grave lay along the roadside. There wer, , German graves, too. Desecrated cem eteries were found in many cases
 There was a constant panorama o
 destroyed or charred vineyards, gar dens and homes.
 The President was welcomed a , Rheims by the mayor and a commit tee to whom Mir. Wilson explained . that he had not como to the devas , tated regions sooner because he hat been wholy engaged at Paris with tn
 business of making peace. Before go ing to the cathedral he passed throug
 the streets of a deserted city whic
 was once the home of 115.0O9 people
 but where less than 1000 now ar eking out an existence among tn ruins. He visited Red Cross canteen
 where hundreds of destitute person
 are fed night and day and the hospi
 tai where the injured and sick ar Y cared for.
 A light blanket of snow covere
 the ground as the President drove u
 to the cathedral and Rheims, ravishe
 and naked in all its misery and desC , lation. looked like a graveyard in tt , moonlight. There were more crow . In the air, circling over the ruine