The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-27
Wilson Visits Battle Front and Frances Ruined Places
Continued from Page One)

Then MT. Wilson drove up the hill over which the American troops smashed the crack Prussian divisions s11ustered there to crush the green horns and where the advance on Paris was checked. This was near Chateau-Thierry. MT. Wilson saw the ruins of bridges over which the Amer jeans thrust back the enemy line and the she'll marked houses which sur vtved the battles.
 The mayor of Chateau-Thierry greeted MT. Wilson, who responded quite informally. He then drove on towards Rheims, passing along the old battle line between long lanes of barbed wire entanglements now rust ing away fin the first winter of peace; Between long muddy trenches reached over the hills and down into hollows as far as the eye could see and past +he wrecks of duGouts, ammunition dumps, aviation sheds, hospitals, bar racks and all the other litter left by the defeated enemy in his flight.
 American, as well as French, graves lay along the roadside. There were Eerman graves, too. Desecrated cem- leteries were found in many cases There was a constant panorama of destroyed or charred vineyards, gar tIens and homes.
 The President was welcomed at Taheims by the mayor and a commit tee to whom Mir. Wilson explained that he had not come to the devas- tated regions sooner because he had been wholly engaged at Paris with the business of making peace. Before go- ing to the cathedral he passed through the streets of a deserted city which was once the home of 115,O00 people, , but where less than 5000 now are sfking out an existence among the ruins. He visited Red Cross canteens where hundreds of destitute persons are fed night and day and the hospi- tal where the injured and sick are cared for.
 A light blanket of snow covered the ground as the President drove III to the cathedral and Rheims, ravisheC and naked in all its misery and desc lation, looked like a graveyard in tn, moonlight. There were more crow in the air, circling over the ruinet town, than there were human being below in the filtered streets
 Cardinal Lucon, archbishop 0 Rheims, who stood steadfastly by hi charge for four years, during whicl time scarcely a day passed withou German shell hurhng death int the city, met the President at tn fence of rough boards which now ex clydes curiosity seekers and enclose the rubbish into which this most his toric edtf1ce has been reduced. Tn cardinal conducted MT. Wilson to tn nave of the cathedral, where in 191 the Germans during their short oc equation of the city, placed thei wounded, and then. being forced t evacuate, burned their men to deat 0y incendiary ehells that fired tn roof but did not damage the vault
 All over the f1agging. worn s1noot through the years by millions of fee Infringing Frenchmen to an hours de votion, were piled heaps of rubbish remnants of statuary and frescoes an fragments of columns and sculpture which were accounted the most pei feet and complete examples. of Gotr 1c art As the President and th cardinal stood together looking LII ward, while the prelate briefly rt counted the story of four years constant destruction, they locke straight through to the clouded six 8The snow furry that was coverir the bare ruins of the city outside "; also laying a blanket inside the cath idral.
 The cha1ky stone of Champagn of which the cathedral was built,
 scaling off from the effects of Ge man fire and the falling snow fax, were mixed with an almost constal dropping of fragments. Pausing
 moment before the scene of Il crucifixion above the north door, ar before the painting of the coronatic of the Virginia. over ths central doc Mir. Wilson silently viewed the d IEtruction wrought upon those maste pieces by the burning of tho scaffol ing when the Germans set fire to Il roof of the sdifce.
 The President followed the ca dinal to the ruins of the chap where old-time kings watch, through the night at the time of the anointing. and to the ruins oF Il museum where priceless Flemi
 tapestries were ruined. He W shown where thousands of she
 thrown from German batteries two sides burst among the buttress which support the main structure al