The Washington times., 1921-11-08

Have You Seen Foch?
Little and Great FRENCH.
Nobel Foolishness.
5000 Cheaper Than 400.

Soopoi tHoV wv.
l-Ry ARTHUR BRISBANE j
tcopyrishL issI.)
A few have seen the wonderful
little fighting man from France
Foch. More than nine
ty-five million will NOT see him.
They might like a few words
about him.
He saw Detroit yesterday. met
and dined with prominent citi-
Gems. Mayor Couzens told him
now Father Hennepin sailed the
Detroit in 1879 and wrote in his
diary:
Those who will one day have
the happiness to possess this fer
tile plain and pleasant strait will
be very much obliged to those
who have shown the way"
When the mayors proclama-
tion was translated to him. Mar
shal Foch lifted his hands to-
ward the sky. as Frenchmen do,
Grand Dieu. ce Pauvre PEREZ Hen
nepin, sill pour RAFT voir cette
vile aujourd'hui!"
Marshal Foch was the small
est man in the room. as well as
the greatest. not much taller than
the tiny Napoleon. And, in spite
OF his Basque ancestry. he is as
French as the Rue de La PaiX.
The crowds saw a cap all COW
cred with gold, boots to the knees
laced at the front. lone plain
overcoat Of light blue. and then
the face of one of the real men
of the world.
1t is a tired face. one that.
after war and its horrible re-
sponsibilities. now struggles on
through peace with responsible
ties still greater.
Straight as an arrow, carving
his seventy years. Marshal Foch
works as hard and intensely to
please crowds of unknown peo-
pie as though his own life and
future depended on making a few
new friends.
His face is heavily lined and
pale, his hair gray, but not white,
and thin. His dropping mustache
struggles. He gives it little
thought. The tired eyes flash and
the chin goes up in the air when
the word "France" is heard in
some banal speech. There are
many such speeches.
When a very beautiful lady of
Detroit, with a gigantic bunch Of
flowers, made him a long speech,
Foch held her bare hand in his
throughout the entire speech, num-
bling French compliments that
would have done her heart good if
she could have understood him.
He is military and precise, not
knowing exactly what is expected
Of him, willing to do anything,
praise everything. His hand held
in firm salute, bowling right and
left, he faces one crowd after an
other. Many men in one have been
packed away in that skull during
the thousands of years, a mixture
of Gaul, Frank, Roman, Basque,
Iberian. Celt and Heaven knows
what, all combined to make I'D the
conqueror Foch Of today.
The real beauty Of a magnificent
old face you saw all in one moment
when little children crowded around
his feet on the steps of Detroit's
city hall to be photographed with
him. The old marshal bent over,
patted each child on the head, for
getting his erect carriage and his
military salute. Fate has made
him a conqueror and a killer of
many men, nature made him a
lover of children.
The Nobel Commission, which
gives as prizes to scientists and
writers part of the fortune accu-
mulated by the man that invented
dynamite, bars H. G. Wells. Ber-
nard Shaw and Maxim Gorky from
any literary prize because their
writings, are influenced by politi-
cal considerations" There is at
least one fool on the Nobel Com
mission: Every complete man in
terests himself in public questions
and in politics.
Had it not been for the polit-
ical fights and hatreds of Italian
cities, Dante would never have
written "The Divine Comedy"
Without political hatreds and
Jealousies among the Greeks.
Homer would have written
neither Iliad nor Odyssey.
To ship ton of white newsprint
paper from Niagara Falls to New
York city costs more than to
ship ton from Germany to New
York city.
From Niagara to New York
runs the Erie canal, with Mag
ara's power at the far end to
send the power over wires. The
ocean ship must carry its own
coal.
American business men. ask
ing for protection, which they
ought to have in reason, should
think a little about protecting
themselves against their own ex-
pensive and extravagant methods.
There is something feeble in a