The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1924-02-29
IT'S A DIFFERENT
FRANCE THAN THE
DOUGHB0yS KNEW
SheII-Ton Country Now Pre-
sents New Front to Tour
ing GroupSr
By FLORA G. ORR.

PARIS, Feb. Is Cby mail)-Tirne:
Three years from now. Scene: Paris.
Gone from the billboards of Cooks,
the American Express and other tour
ist agencies will be those posters adj
vertising tours of the battlefelds and
devastated regions.
This will be true if France keeps
on at the rate she's going now with
her repair and reconstruction work.
For no matter how excited you may
get about what is going to happen to
the franc, facts and figures show that
France is steadily recovering indus
trially, agricultturally and economical
ly, too, if you consider increased for
eign trade a symptom Of GONZALES
cence.
Almost $50, 900 C741, 1898. to be exact
houses were destroyed by the Ger
mans in northern France during the
war. BY Jan. /, 1928, 553,977 new
houses had been built.
According to figures just released
by the bureau of reconstruction Of
the liberated regions, the last year
saw As ,023 additional buildings com
pleted. This leaves 143,993 still to
be replaced, and three more years
at the outside will probably see this
stint accomplished
1t is still true, of course, that a ride
through Northern France will show
YOU many a heart-breaking ruin,
crumbnng piles of stone and mortar,
and depressing, looking shattered walls.
Spic and Span Buildings
But you viii also see many spic and
span new buildings. almost middle
western American in their appearance.
They may not be so interesting as the
old styled French buildings, but
they're more sanitary.
Rheims, for example, is full of new
houses, modern hotels, new movie
theaters and new department stores.
When the Germans got through with
it. it had hardly a house left which
was habitable.
Fismes. the town taken by the S2nd
United States Division, after eight
days of street fighting, and Vieux, the
first town captured by the IND Dlvl-
sion, are both so greatly rebuilt that
the boys wouldn't know them.
Around the "Chemin des DANES"
and near Hill 10S, the tourist will see
barbed wire still stretched over the
ground, and will notice shelltorn land
which looks as though it never could
be reclaimed.
But of the over eight million acres
of land which were torn up during the
war. there remain still to be restored
only 974.490 acres-about one-ninth of
the total.
'Pul lie Money Scandals
Twenty-Five thousand and nine hum
dred factories in this same region
were destroyed. Now all have~eeen.
rebuilt except 2,725.
France has her public money scan
dals," too. The papers have recently
made considerable fuss about the way
the eighty millions of francs appro-
priated foi. reconstruction each year
have been distributed. 1t is said that
one man whose factory cost him one
fourth million francs before the war
got thirteen million francs with which
to replace IT.
Many deserving cases are said to
have been "shelved" in favor of in
fuential parties, without real claims.
That Germany has paid for so lit
tie of the reconstruction is naturally d
sore point with the French However,
they don't want German workers.
They say there is none too much work
in France for French labor.