Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-02-17
Peace Conference Invisible Show to
Which Many Apply But Few Admitted
Universal Stair Correspondent

Universal Stair Correspondent
Paris, Feb. 16.-An American SOL
der stopped me on the Rue Royale
this morning with a plea for direc-
ton put in very bad French. When
answered in English his face fell
apart-aetually broke into pieces, so
broad was the grin.
Say, mister" he finally inquired
after we'd snapped talk for min
ute or so, where does a guy get a
ticket to this peace conference? I'm
going home next week and I'd like
to tell the folks back in Missoula
had a look, see, at the big guns
working on the league of nations
business"
This doughboy was the most sur
prised and disappointed man in
Paris when I told him there was no
peace show under tent and con-
sequently no tickets ottainable. But
the performance was going on just
the same, | assured him, and /, as
correspondent, was as badly off as
he. | wanted ticket and did not
know where TO find one.
But. say, don't all these kings
and ministers and things sit around
somewhere before a big table and
pass the peace pipe? You know
have the big talk while some keeper
of the kings buckhounds rushes the
can up the back stairs ,"
A Disappointed Doughboy.
The doughboy from Montana was
insistent in his curiosity. A puzzled
frown gathered between his heavy
eyebrows when / bruke it to him
gently that as a spectacle this peace
show had nothing on the Cherry
Sisters, and that it was plain case
of Observation-Disclosures for any
body who came to Paris expecting
40 see something like the movies
would stage with the caption, MAX
ing the World Over"
/ had no original intention of de-
stroying that doughboy's pretty Wis
ions of a peace table de luxe, with
starehed gentlemen carrying rows
OF sparkling stars and medals on
their chests, sitting stifhy about it,
while the photographer said, Smile
little, please" Nor do I desire to
cut holes in any mental canvas folks
back home may have painted for
themselves with the peace confer
ence as a motif.
But the sober truth is that the
peace conference. right now, at LEAST,
as more a state Of mind than state
of being; that its vast ramihcations
have been and are now being worked
out in London. in Rome and Paris.
and that the tides that flow beneath
the surface carry for us observers
only little chips Of circumstance to
point their direction.
Perhaps when the last delegate
from Japan or Bolivia or Liberia is
on the ground, there will be enough
of a peace conference to make a
group picture. But that will be some
time in the quite distant future when
Mr.. Lodge and his associates in
congress have thoroughly decided
that somebody has double-crossed
the senate because there was no
ticker service from the conference
hall directly into the foreign rela-
tions committees room.
A Peace Conference Picture.
Perhaps, if I tell you just how
much of the conference the average
American correspondent sees in a
typical day here in Paris at this
time, you will gain fair picture OF
what the whole tremendous event is
like. Call this composite cores
pondent Van Bibber, after the late
Dick Davis's mythical newspaper
hero.
Van reads two or three French
papers with his coffee and rolls
served in bed, you know, for that IS
the only way the French know of
serving breakfast; there's no other
place to eat il. From them he glfans
that the socialists are primed to
raise another big row in the Cham
Der because Of the tardiness Of the
government in ordering demobiliza-
ton; that the condition of the peo-
pies in the devastated districts OF
! France is going to be made the
subject of a debate in the same
chamber, and that Premier Gle
menceau lost ten more votes in the
vote taken the day before on this or
that subject. All OF this news of the
conference to Van Bibber. because
upon Clemenceau's stand or fall as
head of the government depends mo-
mentous issues Of the league of ma
tons, the freedom of the seas and
many other points in the program
of the American president.
From the papers the energetic
correspondent makes a note Of the