The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-08-06
TOURISTS ARE
AWE STRICKEN

I ---- tg
Americans Among Ruins Of Devasted
! France and on BattIefields Show
| Much Emotion at
Sights.
| [By Henry Wood, United Press Staff
Correspondent
! PARIS, July "a. (By Mail -Here
| is the impression that the first
| American Observation-Disclosures
! pecially the battlefield tourists--is
making on the French.
| Jean Rogier, leading French writer.
| to learn just what effect the sight Of
/ the French battlefields and devasta-
! ted regions might make on Ameri-
cans, seeing them for the first time,
made four-day trip with the Ameri.
| can tourists to Chalons, Saint Mihiel.
l-Verdun, the Argonne. Champagne,
Reims, and scissors.
| During those four days." Roger
declared to the United Press, Il lived
with them,I watched their gestures,
studied their attitudes. / lay in wait
ing for their looks and glances, / OBJ
served their words, and think I read
their hearts.
These Americans, especially the
older ones, were very gay and their
gayety, rather boyish, if not childish
at times, first grated on me and then
shocked me. would have preferred
to meet hem grave and already pre-
pared for the sorrowful proof to
which they were to be subjected.
"But suddenly amongst the very
first ruins this gayety died and
seemed to bury itself in the stones of
the overthrown villages. They no
longer laughed and no longer joked.
""Thel frightful image of the war be-
gan to appear. 1t was there before
their eyes and no longer were they
able to turn their eyes away.
"They loked with frightened
glances at the disemboweled houses,
at the demolished church towers, at
the ruined churches, at the torn and
twisted iron work Of former factories,
at the riddled walls and all of the hid
eous skeletons of the war which
passed along at the side of their auto
mobiles like black skeletons.
with extended arms the Ameri-
can tourist pointed out in the dis
lance huge red spots that either stood
out against the green verdue of hills
or that redeemed the grass Of the
prairies.
Burned~-burned-a village burned
oh! Oh! Oh!,"
Their lips never ceased to repeat
this trembling lamentation in tones
that intermixed their pity, their sor-
row, their indignation and their an
ger.
There are people whose sensibili-
ties are sud- emily aroused at moments
like the opening and shutting of
doors and there are others where
the sensibi1ities remain like silent
and vigilent servant.
with these Americans there was
no exhuberance Of gesture, no fracas
of words, no extravaganza Of express,
ion. It was only on their faces and In
their eyes that could read their i'm.
pressions and see the souls that re-
Elected. Their silence translated their
emotions and spoke more loudly than
as though they had uttered the most
vehement cries.
"As yet the thought Of death had
not been borne in to them 1t only
struck them as they stood before
Belleau Wood and Romagne where
$1,000 graves lie dug in the shade of.
the trees.
2 with slow steps, uncovered heads
and pious gestures they entered as
one enters temple. On each cross
there was a name, the number OF the
regiment, but sometimes only one
word:
Unknown
zone of my companions pointed
out in the middle of the cemetery a
crown of pearls resting against !
flagstaff from the top of which !
floated the Stars and Stripes worked
into the crown with different color
ed beads was the inscription which
she translated from French into
English:
""The city of Montrouge, marianne
of the village of Torcy to the Ameri-
can soldiers who died for Liberty,
Justice and Right
"Tha't is sweet-very sweet, muir
INJURED tht American tourists. !.
cone of them, a woman, continued: j.
1T is very sweet for us to feel that
France has not forgot our boys who
fought along side her own
"Then one of the American woman
ran to a little wooden house all
white in the center of young cy-
presses and flowers where she ex-
changed a few words with a young
American girl sitting on the veranda.
shook here hands and then returned
Join her party. /,
7 don't know any Of the girls she
said, but they are the guardians Of
the cemetery-all volunteers-they {
i've there all alone and I felt that l
wanted to thank them on behalf OF
all the women of the United States
'1These delicacies of the heart,
these touching acts, these moving
words found often during the course {
Of the pilgrimage as we stood before
the accumulated ruins Of villages or
before the nothingness of the ravaged
country.
But it was at verdun that they {
really had their vision Of the night
mare of war and of the dismay OF
he earth.
ooh. we didn't know they cried.