Imperial Valley press., 1923-07-16
FRENCH SHANTY
TOWN RESULT OF
POST WAR BOOM
Good Will Delegates
Marvel at Energy of
Albert


root an American shanty town in
the full fever of boom rush. set
il down in all its mushroom vigor
amidst the ruins of some old world
catvclism, and YOU have the historic
city of Albert as the Good VIII
delegates found it in their tour of
the devastated regions of northern
France
Here is city which had grown
hoary with age and had been beaten
down by war, literally rising from
the grave, taking on new youth and
starting all over again; Il people
bludgeoued, bleeding, bowed, be
numbed by the cruelties of eiviliza-
tion 5 greatest tragedy, setting
their hands afresh to the workaday
commonplaees of community life
where they left off-literally ehal-
lenging destiny.
Albert is coming back! No doubt
about it. The spirit of the town is
simply unconquerable.
Just now she is a town of shan
ties. Shantv homes, shanty stores,
shanty-office nothing but shan
ties for blocks and blocks. The city
government, the mayor S office, the
police department, the assessor, all
function in shanties. Long sheds of
them spread across the spacious
square where once stood Albert S
beautiful city hall. Most of the
town s merchandise is sold i'll shan
ties. Housewives shop from shanty
store to shanty, trudging across and
along pavements still topsy-turvy
from their deluge of World War
shells.
Dug Themselves Out
All of which must not be CON
strued to mean that Albert has lain
dormant or idle during the five
years that have elapsed since the
armistice was signed. Her industri-
Gus people have been working with
might and main all the time. But
they had to dig out and clear away
before they could start to rebuild.
AS all the world knows, the town
vas almost pulverized by the rain
of shot and shell which swept her
from every point of the compass
during the war. Her ruin9tion re-
suited in all but annihilation. A
mass of twisted steel alone remained
to mark the site of the once proud
city when the German invaders were
driven back for the last time.
A City Swallowed Up
Like all the cities of northern
France which trace their history
back into ancient times, through war
after war, Albert in 1914 WAS under
mined by vast system of subter-
ranean works-relics of places of
refuge for the people when invad
ing armies attacked-into the laby-
rinth the city tumbled during the
commandments which began on Sep
tember %, 1914, and continued un
ceasingly almost to the point of an
initiating the town. Albert col
lapsed into its own cellars, as
though the earth had swallowed it,
and today, with whole squares and
lines of these cellars finally ex
posed and hemmed in by the piles
of debris hauled out of them, the
city appeared to the Good Will dele
gates as 1.-The Modern Pompeii. -
On a rise of ground in the center
of Albert stand the ruins of its
cathedral, dark against the sky, its
several pillars and broken arches
merging, when vie~ed from certain
angles, into a conieal effect-much
as Vesuvius lifts itself-2nd from
the base of the cathedral there flow
away on all sides the figurative
lava beds of crumbled stone and
brick and slate.
An American Boom Spirit
Amid this desolation the Ameri-
can women were astonished to find
such optimism. There is no bemoan
ing Of fate, scarcely any talk of the
war and no hint either by word OF
action that, Albert will not some
dav remove the last vestige of the
ruins. The inhabitants are ener-
getic. They make the best of life
in the shanties.
In Albert, very close to the town,
what is described as the largest
mine crater in the Somme sector
came into view. 1t WAS there, just
before the British troops began
their memorable offensive along the
Somme on July l, 1916, that they
exploded a mine from one Of the
enemy's most formidable positions,
mine planted after weeks of Dor
ing underground. The crater IS
more than 200 feet in diameter.