The Carlisle independent., 1920-07-22
TANK DIscoURTEsY IN FRANCE


 Certainly the Americans did not bear in mind Machiavelli's wise max i'm that foreign army in a friendly country should have nothing to do wilh the native women, for otherwise they rouse the hatred of the native men. The French now retort sarcas- tically when they read of the lynch ing of negro; 'The Americans when they were in France were so respect ful to our women that they are in fine positinon to be particular"
 The unpleasant case at we'll known restaurant in Paris while sthe war was still on, when an American in uniform took some liberty with woman who was accompanied by |, French officer, got a box on the ear from the Frenchman, drew his revoI- yer and shot the Frenchman and was in turn shot dead himself by another French officer, was only one of many.
 There is a good deal in the French charge that the Americans behaved too much as if they were in a con- quered country. They showed people off the sidewalk They drove their cars through the streets at breakneck speed. And they said too often: "They daren't do anything to us; we are Americans"
 On the day before the armistice peace parade last July I was sitting in cafe in the suberbs of Paris. It was a quiet respectable place; gen tleman and lady were playing bil- lizards. Their coffee was on table near by and their belongings on a chair. Two husky American soldiers came in. They were a little drunk, but knew quite we'll what they were about. Although there was number of tables vacant, they pumped down at the one already taken, showed the coffee on one side and kicked away the chair with the coats on it. The French people. who doubtless did not want to be mixed up in a brawl with ''our friends and allies," contented themselves with removing their things to another table. When one of the Americans tried to catch hold of the lady's skirt as she was passing, I thought that for the credit of the country ought to interfere. I spoke temperately, but the American hero took my remonstrances in very bad part. He drew gun on me. His friend disarmed him. eff you shoot an American there1l be hell,' he said.
 If it is claimed that not because the Americans misbehaved themselves not because they were Americans, but because they were soldiers, the ans wer is that the Italian and British troops did not make themselves ob- jectionable.
 On the other hand, the American soldiers were shamefully exploited and swindled. Wherever there was a big American camp the scum of France focked there I was told by an official at Brest that the disorderly state of that city was not due so much to the Americans as to the fact that the Americans were in the place.
 Till the arrival of the American army the French knew very little about the Americans. All Americans were very rich. The prestige of the millionaire with which every Ameri- can moved in Europe before the war is now definitely exploded. Americans are blamed and praised for the wrong things. We are blamed as nation of money grabbers, whereas Ameri- cans are more liberal with money than any other people. We are, or were praised as the land of liberty and individual freedom, whereas, but no matter.
 America and Americans are deff- nitely unpopular in France now. I don't know how long it vii last; but the Americans will never again be the same to the French as they were when they first came into the war; Vincent O'Sullivan in the Baltimore Sun.
 THE DEVILS WILL NOT GODS