The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-09-30
A,E,F, BOYS DRIFT
BACK TO PARIS AND
SLIDE TO The DOGS

(Guy Hickok in the Brooklyn EaSle)
Two thousand ex-A. E. F. men are
adrift In Paris. Most OF them are Ut.
terly iobless few have mere bread
and butter jobs-just enough TO keep
them alive.
More gain their living by question
able means-following the races, tout
ing dance halls and worse places-and
a number, horrifying number, are
living in absolute degradation in the
Apache quarters of Paris, as thieves,
accomplices of feminine crooks ana
in other quite uncomfortable pursuits.
Officers of the Paris post OF the
American Legion declare nothing less
than a regiment of military police can
clean this situation up. The French
police appear to be powerless before
the superior vigor and initiative OF
the former Yanks. The Paris post OF
the American Legion, numbering only
900 can do nothing against these
1000. The situation grows worse
from day to day.
Part Of War Tragedy.
These men-left-overs- are part OF
the tragedy Of the war; they are the
lotus eating sediment Of the American
army. Some Of them stayed when the
army went home. Others went home
with 1t, and have drifted-are still
drifting-back.
Many are deserters, new deserters
from the Rhine are joining them.
They cannot break the invisible ties
that bind them to the beautiful city
where 1t Is always afternoon with
nothing to do"
During the war-or after the arms
tice-most of the A. E. F. got taste
of Paris; on some never to be for
gotten three-day leave, or while here
on special duty.
The uniform was an Introduction to
any circle. The highest paid army IN
Europe. the Yanks had everything
their own way. They were cocks OF
the walk. kings of the world Every
khaki-colored suit held a hero and a
world of pretty ladies" bowed In
homage.
Now the uniforms are gone the at
fections OF the pretty ladies" have
shifted,
It is one of the most pathetic, most
dangerous little colonies in the world
this hungry crowd of young Ameri
cans caught like sediment in corner
Of the kitchen sink, waiting, fearful
for the plug to be drawn; waiting fol
the moment when they will be sweep
into the drain with the waste of life.
Colony is Growing.
The most alarming fact about this
little colony of left-overs, with moth
ing to do and nobody to care, is thai
it is growing-growing in size anc
growing more desperate.
A constant drift backward, via
steerage mostly, brings new faces
men who somehow haven't been able
to catch on at home or who have fount
the ways of home too prosaic after thu
fictitious freedom of the war.
They come, many of them unable II
explain the reason Of their coming
dumbly, blindly-as the humming be-
scents it's way back to the flower tina
once before gave perfume and honey
But the perfume and the honey hav
gone. The men grope fumblingly 70
the life they knew before-that wa
big and easy, where everything wen
and nobody cared.
Some expect jobs. Others have n
assets but headful of get-rich-quic
schemes with which to frisk the simpl
Frenchman of his francs.
But the thing they came to find ism
here.
The liberty the license, the loose
ness is left, but the something tina
during and Immediately after the wa
lifted it out of it's pit of foulness ha
gone, never to come back.
One Paris newspaper asks editor
ally:
What will Paris do with them
they stay-and what will they do wit
Paris?'
Last Step in the Drama.
The question answers itself too fir
ouently. Funds get lower and lowe
There are urgent cablegrams home