The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-21
By FRANK CARJENTER Copyright 1923. Carpenters World
 Travels


 Copyright 1923. Carpentier's World Travels.
 GENEVA, Switzerland, Oct. 2o.- From the Slough of Despond to the Delectable Mountains, from isms and ologies to plain common sense, from wood pulp currency worth less than the paper on your wall to coins as good as the fine metal which paves the streets of Jerusalem the Golden, from nations still racked by war to the people of perpetual peace. I have come almost in a night. The distance from Warsaw across Germany and France to Geneva, is not much great CT than from Cleveland to New Or leans. It can be made in less than 24 hours, and with an airplane it may soon be flown between breakfast and dinner. The distance between sanity and insanity is still less, and l seemed to have jumped from one to the other.
 The Land of the Perpetual Pcac. l have called the Swiss the people of perpetual peace. They have all ways had peace, but it has been peace after fighting. Their fights have been only for freedom and not for robbing their neighbors or acquiring l more territory. For centuries this little mountainous country, surrounded as 1 it were by the bullies of Europe, has guarded it's boundaries and kept it's independence. The city of Geneva is emblematic of peace, and its sturdy fight for liberty has rightly made it | the seat of the League of Nations and the capital of the many countries | which have started to work for the peace of the world
 1 Strolling today through the town
 on the other side of the Rhone, ! ctunn hl ed which embody the part that Geneva now 1 holds. One was that of the reforma- l ton, a great wall of sculpture made | of white sandstone 300 feet long and perhaps 50 feet high. It has been | built up against the old wall of | Geneva, with the moat still washing 1 it's feet. It is the monument of the | fight this city waged for the free 1 dom Of religious thought, now more | than 300 years ago. In the center, cut out of the sandstone, stand the four 1 figures of John Calvin and John Knox l together with those of Ferel and Beza who also lived and worked here l The figures are more than three times life size and are beyond de- scription majestic. Along the wall or | both sides of them stand six smaller 1 statues each representing the most independent thinker of the great na- tions. One is Admiral Coligny. the | H0lO Ol lii6 nus OCHVtSf oAAONHOA Oliver Cromwell who brought free dom to England, a third the great 1 Dutchman. William of Orange, and a l fourth under the great Quaker hat ot 1 Puritan days, Is our own Roger Will Hams, who founded Rhode Island ! Uncle sam At Geneva.
 The other monument of peace I re- | fer to is the Alabama Room inside the Cantonal capital and city hall of 1 Geneva. It was there that the first in | ternational meeting of the Red Cross was held, and there, the first great | financial dispute among nations, thai of the Alabama claims, was settled by arbitration. There by word ot mouth the decree was given against England by which she paid over to the United States something like $15,- 000, 900 in compensation for the out rages committed by British pri- vateers during our Civil war. Among the other relics of the room is a brass model of the Liberty bel at Philadelphia, as big as a quart cup, which was sent to Geneva after the Paris exposition. and which al most 50 years later rang to order the first assembly of the League of Ma tions. Another emblem showing that although the United States does not belong to the league. she has been
 
 exponent of peace. is a blow and 3 pruning hook made of the swords of Union and Confederate officers as an indication of our desire for the abo- lition of war, It is emblematic of two quotations from the Bible, the wording of which you will find upon examination to be exactly the same The first is that of the Prophet Isaiah, the second chapter, the fourth verse:
 And they shall beat their swords
 into plowshares.
 And their spears into pruning hooks: Nations shall not lift up sword
 against nation.
 Neither shall they learn war any
 more"
 Turning on to the Prophet Micah who by the way was contemporary of Isaiah, the two living about 700 yeare before Christ in the fourth chapter, third verse, you will find the above words verbatim, and in the fourth verse Micah adds: y
 But they shall sit every man under
 his vine.
 And under his fig tree:
 And none shall make them afraid"
 This blow and pruning hook were not made as the outcome of the League of Nations nor of any move ment in the World war. It was only eight years after the Germans footed the French and forced them to pay that billion dollars in damages that we voiced forth our desire for inter- national peace. At the same time that the model of the Liberty bell was sent to the Paris exposition of 1878, an Indiana farmer named At kinson offered s10 for any Civil war hook to be sent along with it. An Iowa colonel supplied the sword and a Philadelphia mechanic made the pruning hook for s5 The story of the incident was published. and other officers belonging to both Northern and Southern armies sent in their swords to be made into a blow as an additional emblem. The blow here was made of that steel, and after the exposition it was sent to Geneva as the place most entitled to be itssrest- ing place. It now stands on a table in this Alabama room beside the bell with the pruning hook leaning against 1t.
 And still these Pharisees of Europe say that Uncle Sam is backward in his desire for international Brotherly Lovei Indeed 1t makes one think of chestnuts out of the fire.
 The Capital Of The League.
 Geneva is the capital of the League of Nations. The members of the league and some of the citizens call it the Peace Capital of the whole world. This is so If We except such