The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-02-15

And today 1t is France again. Streets
are overlooking with blue-Clad soldiers,
French bugles sound in streets, on the
forts far above, along the hills. toward
France the tricolor flies. The German
packed his trophies of Gravelotte Ia
carry home. but his departure was toe
rapid and they remain behind. He has
left behind him thousands OF Germans
who finger to attest their desire 10
become French and grovel where they
used to strut and domIneer; but still
sometimes in a corner whisper that
Germany will come back with the next
war five years later. and darkly threat
en- punishment to fall upon those peo-
pie who welcomed the French.
II only II were possible in some way
to picture, to represent the sense there
is everywhere in Metz, Of the terrible
and evil thing that has just vanished,
which Is hardly gone beyond the near
hills. What for nearly so years ground
and crushed and mutilatsd monuments
and temples, the spirit which was In
monuments, temples and human beings.
Metz, with all its French soldiers, is
IKE a prisoner emerging from a dun
geon, still blinking in the new-found
light. Liberty, freedom, civilization, as
we know it, has begun again, but it
goes h~eavy-footed still, with a sense Of
chains only yesterday removed.
Down in Paris | find my American
associates beginning to talk. They say
the German organization functioned
even in its final stage OF dissolution,
German order still prevails on the Al
SAGE Lorraine railways, while in France
all is confusion. The German mad a
way about him; he was a master Of
organization, you feel the instructive
American appreciation of it, But in
Metz the other side leaps to your sight.
Efficient, yes; master of machines,
yes; but with all his machine and his
efficiency he made only enemies and
misery; Up on the plateau by Grave
lotte there stands a pathetic Russian
prison camp. Thousands of forsaken
russians lived and labored there,
mlnistered by the German machine and
tnelr bones are scattered over all the
mus. That camp, like the railroad
station and parks, is a symbol, a mon
ument OF German efficiency.
Inc odd thing about Metz, too, is
mat Tor once-and I do not recall that
1t has ever before happened in history
Ia mechanically superior civilization,
better material organization, has
failed. lost out, had 90 give place To
an older n less effective order, The
answer Is simple, The materialism was
TOO gross, the power too brutal; II
crushed the soul with the very burden
Of lts colossal works and it has failed.
ffance IS beginning again on the mid
die Moselle, French spirit, French civ
lliAation-you have a very odd. but
cumulative, sense Of France itself flow
ing back to what was anciently undis-
puted French soil.
But again and again in Metz I had
me feeling that 1t was only in such
circumstance that my American COM
patriots, like myself, could feel accu-
rately what this German was
Which threatened all OF us with ma
terlal organization and spiritual death
win admirably organized towns and
CITY blocks and parks which, while TAX
ing away our western traditions of lib-
erty' sought to reconcile MS not gently.
U violently, by the very size OF its
its machines. ~
Soul of Town Crushed.
You can see how the soul of this it,
we french town was crushed out iust
as were the Russian prisoners IN on
ne NIL You must be German or die;
bnere was no room for anyone else
me same spirit stirred here in 1870
tanned all over Belgium and Northern
france In 1914; but in Metz you felt
you had resurrected the German strain;
some OF the things which lately terror
yea the world were conceived here.
isNiS tlC 1eI man LOT on years KlOrleu in
the power to tyrannize, abuse, perse-
cute; his material atrocities OF the late
war were the natural evolution OF. his
spiritual atrocities of half a century,
what he did to the soul of Messin he
did to the body Of citizens of Louvain
and to a score Of French cities.
| have seen no such interesting or
Impressive city in Europe during the
war on the world as Is Metz today.
Hating the German thing all my life, /
have never understood it half as well as
in this tragic town recalled from the
grave, still incredulous OF it's deliver
ance, hope and fear still struggling, a
prisoner newly come from an under
ground cell after half a century OF tor
ture. And you have the sense In Metz
that Germany may come again. The
very solidity of his buildings, the very
extensiveness Of his constructions, fos-
ter the illusion. 1t was not the military
caste or the imperial master who
worked here; II was the race, express
ings its purpose relentlessly and with
absolute confidence. Rome restored the
barriers OF the Rhineland against these
same ~barbarians, but they passed IL
still again.
Two Civilizations Slashed.
You have the sense OF two ~ciyiliza-