The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-27
CORRESPONDENTS|N
 DEMAND IN PARIS Need Several Social Secre- taries To Keep Up With
 All the Invitations

Paris, March f1.-Newspaper corre- spondents accredited to the peace confer ence are more popular than beautiful mil- fionaire debutantes in their first sea- son.
 Queens, counts, princes, lords, ladies, ambassadors, ministers. premiers, presi- dents, would-be presidents, peace dele gates and plain citizens who are uniuue in being mere messieurs shower the cor respondents with invitations to teas, tiff fins, dinners and occasionally to audi ences which have no social disguise.
 American correspondents are in special demand. Everybody wants Americas s ear. Three social secretaries and a squad of motor dispatchehs would be required to avoid social errors and land a corre- spondent promptly at all the functions to which he is invited. And he would have no time for anything so prosaic as the plenary sessions of the peace confer ence.
 Everything from Balshazzar to the bol- sheviki is discussed at these social func- tions. Correspondents are whisked from New Guinea to Nova Zembla without warning. Ptolemy and Ponpey are resur- rected and discussed at such length that one might suspect they narrowly missed being selected as delegates to the Paris conference
 Ancient Greece and Rome no longer seem ancient. Philip of Macedon sud denly becomes modern. Persian poets sing of their country's proper boundaries with all the charm of Omar Khayyam. The Old Testament is introduced as a modern bit of litera ture designed to es- tablish certain territorial claims.
 Countries and peoples are discovered at these conferences which American school geographers apparently hadn't heard of; and even the geogra phical specialists em- ployed by the various missions to the Paris conference are mystified
 It's a rare occasion when delega ton descends to a period as modern as shat of Charlemagne or Pepin the Great in making claims for the right of self-deter- imitation.
 Sanskrit and Arabic are revived glibly in an effort to establish the consanguinity of certain peoples Ancient philosophers are quoted in their original tongues Anglo-Saxons are reminded of the perfect civilization which existed in the orient 5009 years before the Christian era Names which the "raw civilization of eastern Europe never heard of are rolled off glibly-names which the Americans try ing to make the world safe for democracy and that speedily, don't want to hear.
 Such claims as that of Belgium for a readjustment of her relations with Hol- land come as a real relief to dazed news paper men ana weary delegates. That controversy only dates back to 1881, to the scrap of paper which Germany prob ably wouldn't tear up so ruthlessy if she could live the last five years over again.
 Discussions of the near eastern ques- tions are much the same whether they be in the drawing room of the Princes of Hedjaz or. the meetings of the big five at the Quai d'Orsay. They are reminis cent of weary classroom days with Homer, Herodotus and Virgil. Efforts to interest busy men in antiquity seem fu tile Delegates doze through the exposi- tion of ancient history and correspondents long for brief statements throwing light upon the recent history and aspirations of the various peoples who have lived in such discors for centuries along the shores of the Mediterranean.