The Coolidge examiner., 1936-01-31

ANA in the Saar.
the German hordes when the Roman
empire fell.
1t was so in the FrancO-Prussian
war; Won Moltke, in 1870, followed
Blucher's route of 1913, and about
Saarbrucken came one of the first
clashes of that war which helped
Bismarck to found his German en-
pire. Again, of course, in the World
war, the armies passed this way,
and many an allied soldier washed
his shirt in the Saar, the Moselle
and the Rhine, or traded cigarettes
and white bread to willing frauleins
for jug of wine.
Fly over SaarlOuis, where Mar
shall Ney was born, and in its very
heart you see the outline of the
old forts built by Louis NV of
France.
Dating, as a town, from 1850, its
people lived for more than 200
years almost wholly by trading with
the garrisons-firSt French, then Ger
man, then French again.
Today old walls and moats that
, encircled the fort have been torn
down and filled to make broad,
smooth streets, as the Americans
did with parts of Manila.
German infantry, artillery, cav
airy, army wagOnS-all the money
spending machinery of war-made
Saarlouis a busy town until after
the World war; When they evacu-
ated, the French came in for a
while; but now few occupants are
found for all the vast barracks.
1t is quiet, almost too quiet, for
those residents who remember the
band concerts, the glittering re-
views, and fat army pay rolls Of
other days.
French Are Scarce There.
German in race, speech, culture,
and traditions, the Saar showed
by a pre-war census only about one
person in 200 with French as his
native tongue. 1t was simply a le-
gal accident at Versailles which
made these people citizens, tempo
rarily, of a phantom state. The
Saar, under that treaty, gained no
nationality, no. president or other
ruler of its own. Instead, COM
mission of five Europeans was
named by the League of Nations to
administer the territory's affairs
until the plebiscite.
By treaty the Saar went under
a customs union with France !;
French customs guards were set to
patrol the line between Germany
and the Saar and French money
was put into use. To pay France
for her own coal mines damaged
by Germans in the World war, she
was given the coal mines in the
Saar The treaty provided also that
after the plebiScite Germany might
buy these mines back again if she
wished, and such an agreement was
concluded late in 1884.
Only around Saarlouis is any
French influence noticeable, and that
is not due to the presence there of
many living Frenchmen. Such in
fiuence belongs to the past-Vau-
bans old forts built when Louis
XIV made this a French garrison
town; French names and epitaphs
in the cemetery; and an odd local
dialect current among older resi-
dents, a curious blend of German
and French.
To see how thoroughly German
the region is, in speech and SEN
timent, you have only to mingle
with any holiday crowd and listen
to the songs, the speeches. and the
music; or read the papers; or see
what crowds follow broadcasts
from the radio stations at Frank
furt and Stuttgart
Industry Is Intensive.
AS in the Ruhr, industry here is
compact, intensive, and theatrical
in it's setting.
Like volcanoes, its giant mills, as
at Volklingen (2J0,2GD, belch forth
clouds of thick gray smoke; the
red glare of blast furnaces turns
black night into brilliant Gehenna.
Under every hill is coal. Over
every mine is a big wheel on a tow
er; again and again you see the big
wheel spin, as it winds up cable
that lifts it's load from deep in
the earth.
This is the only place on earth
where you see mines and steel mills
closely crowded by forests, as if
bits of industrial Pittsburgh were
set in one of our forest reserves.
The wooded slopes of the winding
Saar river all covered with snow
much resemble Algonquin park in
Ontario in winter; it seems the
woods must be as dense and myS-
teriOus as when druids built their
sacrificial affairs there and hungry
Dagan CeltS searched for wild meat.