Evening star., 1925-03-08
BY FRANK II. SIMONDS,

those of any American city, notably
OF New York or Washington, from
which had recently come To Judge
from the outward aspect, London
seemed to have passed beyond the
war period, to have escaped, not
merely from the passions and emo
tions, but from the outward evidence
of past sufferihgs. You were not con-
scious in the main thoroughfares of
London, for example. of anything to
remind you that these people had re-
Gently passed through the terrible
strains incident to war and postwar ex-
periences.
Now, If one is to apply the same
standard of measurement to Berlin the
first and outstanding sensat tion is one
OF contact with a city and with a peo-
pie who still show outward evidences
of the strain, the suffering and the
anxiety of war and postwar times.
EVERY single circumstance which one
notes serves in some fashion to estab
iish the idea that one is still in a city
and among people who have not yet
escaped the memory of very great
tertRl hardship and perhaps equally
great nervous strain.
Contrast Is Emphasized.
If | may use figure of speech to
illustrate, l had the same impression
coming from Lonodon to Berlin-and
II serves about a s well with respect
to the Paris / visited last year
which l have each year when I go
from Washington to my farm in the
north of New England. In Washing
ton Spring has come, the wonderful
gardens along the Potomac have
nowered, the trees have been in full
blossom, and then, after "a hours. l
come into region which is a full
month later, where the leaves are
only beginning to bud and the lilacs
have not blossomed; where, to put it
briefly, Winter not only still seems
close behind, but can be felt down to
the snow drifts in sheltered corners
Broadly speaking, then, 1 have the
same set of Impressions in coming
from London to Berlin. l think every
traveller at once must recognize that
not only has recovery here been re-
cent, but that it has not yet gone far
enough to erase the evidences Of the
suffering which may be- found on
every side. l do not believe that the
suffering continues on any large
scale; one does feel, | think, that the
stage is definitely terminated, but
one quite clearly feels that il has
existed and on very general scale.
If you study the faces of the people
you meet in the crowds on the street
you will, l am sure, note the presence
of lines of care, of anxiety, just as
you will certainly discover in the
faces of many-but by no means all
of the children-the suggestion that
they have been at a time, and for
considerable time. underfed, not, l
repeat, that they are now underfed;
you have not the sense of present
hunger, but rather of malnutrition
and undernutrition In the past.
Berlin Is Somber City.
BY comparison with London, Paris
or New York, the Berlin of the mo-
ment is a somber, gloomy city, despite
the glorious Spring weather and sun
shine of the moment. The public
buildings look, on the whole, run
down; there is a sense of neglect In
many directions, not, again, of pres
ent neglect but of a period Of neg
Iect in the past, the evidences of which
have not yet been removed, although
the task is in hand.
The crowds that you meet do not
look hungry, they do not seem in
adequately clad but at the same time
the clothes which they wear are, on
the whole, neither smart nor strik
tngly new. To compare the crowds
with those of London or New York
or Paris, you are a t once aware that
there is something missing The
same is exactly true If you watch the
traffic on the broad avenues
More slowly you identify the fact
that what is missing is the sense OF
luxury.
ff you note the traffic you perceive
a" once that in the first place there is
m.ssing any such intensity of traffic
as makes life and limb a. peril In
Lcrdon, Paris or New York. There
a1s automobiles not few, but re-
membering these other cities, the
broad streets none the less look
empty. Again, not only are the au-
tomobiles conspicuously fewer; they
are, in addition, infinitely less pre-
tentious, while the taxis seem to be
present only by squads, in contrast
to the battalions and regiments of
Paris and London.
Many HOrse-Drawn Vehicles.
Indeed, 1t is like a step backward
for a. least a dozen years, to measure
by American standards, to watch the
street traffic, because one sees again
a very large number of carriages,
public carriages for hire and horse
drawn wagons. You are carried back
to that stage with US when the tran
sition from horse to motor was only
lust starting, when the automobiles
were relatively few, when people
were still willing to ride in carriages,
and the mere presence of horse
drawn vehicle did not excite atten-
ton. to the time of the mid victo-
rians.
Now, I dwell upon these rather tri--
vial circumstances because they had
for me a very definite significance
when 1 came to study still more care
fully German conditions as evidenced
by Berlin Reading dispatches and
descriptions in the past from the
Prussian capital, 1 have never felt
duite sure that reports of German
suffering and privation were real;
they conficted SO much with other
reports, equally common, of German
prosperity and German extravaganza.
There Is, IL l may venture to cite
a personal experience, a whole state
of mind with respect to Germany III
the postwar period which has been
dissipated by even a very brief con-
tact with the German people as one
aces them in the streets of Berlin
The expressions which l have seen
IN many faces recall to me viVfdly
the expressions / saw In war areas,
not so much during the actual con-
Hict as in the months following the
armistice, when the people OF these
devastated areas were just beginning
60 escape from the recent nightmare
ana fight their way back to life.
London Impression Defended.
I wrote of London that looking at the
thronged streets, the eager crowds, the
relatively impressive number OF smartiy
dressed people, the crowded restaurants,
you had the sense of tranquility, or. as
we say. of normalcy. 1 had the impress
sion of the London / knew as boy,
when the most vivid war memory was
that of the Napoleonic period.
My English friends have protested
that this impression is on the whole
exaggerated, that behind the surface.