Bisbee daily review., 1919-05-25
TANKS ARE ROBBED BUT FRERCH AREN'T ALL TO BE BLAMED
BY EDWARD M. THIERRY, N. E. A. Staff Correspondent Just
 Returned from France.

Returned from France.
 Propaganda of German origin, aid ed and abetted by the French and spread by Americans. is a paradox that exists in the United States.
 If you are a returned American soldier you are probably helping it unconsciously, perhaps; but neverthe- less helping.
 If you have a son, brother or a friend who has just come back from overseas you have heard it first hand.
 That's why these three questions are worrying us:
 Are the French anxious to get the American soldiers out of France?
 Are all the French robbing the American soldiers abroad?
 Are the French unappreciative of Americas help in the war?
 heard in France all the stories heard them on the boat coming back and heard them at home.
 Every one of the these stories about exorbitant prices charged American troops is true-or at least so near the truth that the minor details do not matter More than a million sol diers have come back with a tale of woe about highway robbery on their pocketbooks. They're kicking - and they've got right to kick Relatives and friends are wrathful-and they've got a right to be.
 But we're not being fair to the French if we condemn the whole French people and the whole French nation. France hasn't been mulcIina, American soldiers. But thousands of unprincipled tradesmen have.
 That's why French grownups are divided into two classes. Number One is the class that Is fleecing the Tanks hand over fist and therefore does NOT want the Americans to come home. Number Two is the class that doesn't sell things and is not robbing the Tanks but which DOES want the Americans to go home-because it has got the idea that the millionaire Americans have so much money and are so ready to spend that they are responsible for high prices.
 Number One class is selfishly help ing German propaganda. It's acts show up in unfavorable contrast to the non- profiteering of German shopkeepers in the occupied areas. It's acts bear out, in the minds of uniformed French country people, the stories spread by paid German agents before the armis- tice that America would gain clutch on France far wrose than any pos sible domination by Germany.
 Number Two class wants the Amer jeans to get out of France because it is beginning to believe this Ger man lie. because the Americans are paying high prices, because they do not realize that the Americans are paying them unwillingly, because Americans are cluttering up favorite seats in cafes. monopoliZing taxicabs and crowding railway carriages.
 There is only one big class in France that doesn't have any part in this unfortunate aftermath of the war. They are the children of France anu the peasants of the ten devastated provinces of France.
 The latter, the nearest possible thing to the soul of the French na' tion, ARE appreciative of what Amer ica has done in the war. And so are the children.
 The future generation, however. is going to wipe out the sins of the French profiteer They are learning in school why America entered the war and what America did to save France. They love America and Amer jeans. Ask any doughboy if that isn't so. I have seen them playing with the French tots in the c.ties and villages of France. The youngsters will pick out a Yank as a playmate 99 times out of 100.
 The French have begun to realize the damage that has been done by Number One class. M. Paul Benazat a member of the Chamber of Deputies said:
 'It is possible that by some clumsi ness we have given grounds for critic ism and that we have furnished arms and arguments to our calumniators But can such language be that of tho men full of passion for freedom, who on setting foot on French soil, ex claimed La Fayette, we are heer!'
 It is even so, Paul! And France only hope in correcting things is tho future generations. The kiddies don want the Americans to leave.