Birdseye Views of Far Lands Part 5

Although great in history, France is but a small country. It is interesting to note that all France could be placed in the state of Texas and there would be room enough left for Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland, one in each corner. Even then, Delaware and the District of Columbia could be put in for good measure and the Lone Star State would still have more than eight hundred square miles to spare.

About half of the people of France depend wholly upon agriculture for their living. Instead of living on farms as we do they live in small villages. Their farms are very small, generally running from two to fifteen acres. As a rule, the soil is thin and unproductive, but with their patient toil, careful methods of farming and a very liberal use of fertilizer they raise abundant crops. Just about half of the soil of France is tilled and about one-eighth is used for grazing while all the famous vineyards of this country cover but about four per cent of the ground. The balance is in forests and streams, highways, ca.n.a.ls, and railways.

When the war broke out there were about four million French families who owned their homes and a thriftier and more industrious people could hardly be found. In 1871, when the heartless Bismarck insisted on having a one billion dollar indemnity, besides the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, he thought he had the people of France throttled for a generation, but to his very great amazement every dollar of this huge sum was paid in less than three years. This fact is but an indication that the French are a race of savers.

A silent revolution in the habits of the peasant people has been the outcome of the war. Ages ago an uprising took the land away from wealthy owners and gave it to the peasants. A few years later Napoleon had enacted or rather established a Code by which a man's property was equally divided between his children. Thus, if a man died leaving four children and an eight-acre farm, it was divided into four strips of two acres each. Then, in the course of time, one of these children died leaving four children, his two-acre farm was divided into four strips of a half acre each.

Thus a great portion of the land is cut up into little strips and gardens. Through the intermarriage of children a family might own several of these strips of land, often miles from each other. This often brought complications and made it impossible to introduce modern farm implements and do away with much of the drudgery of peasant life.

This is one advantage that grew out of the war in many places. In the devastated areas all landmarks were often obliterated and in many cases the government brought in tractors and plowed great fields which before the war were hundreds of little farms and gardens. Then, too, many of these peasants became greedy, selfish individualists. Each man worked by himself and for himself and the idea of co-operation was almost unknown.

No ordinary farmer ever became able to have modern farm implements himself and they never dreamed that several of them could go together and purchase a binder, a thresher or tractor. Their one standby was the hoe and not only the man but his wife and children often had to work from daylight until dark to keep the wolf from the door.

Since the war a new day has dawned for the French peasantry. It was very hard for some of them to give up their old notions and customs, but it meant a new order for all who were in the pathway of the war. While the city of Paris has been always known as the Gay City, yet the people in the country did not enjoy life in any such way. They had no amus.e.m.e.nts, no daily papers, and in some places no songs. The famous Man with the Hoe is a picture of the French farmer. In many of the rebuilt villages now they have amus.e.m.e.nts and movies and in many cases public libraries have been started.

It is said that in many of the farmhouses of the French peasantry may be seen hanging little colored prints representing the main professions. At the top of a stairway stands a king with the motto: "I rule you all," on a step below is a priest who says: "I pray for you all;" still farther down stands the soldier who says: "I defend you all;" but at the bottom of the stairway is the peasant whose motto is: "I feed you all." The French peasant seemed to take this for granted and never imagined that while doing it he might have advantages and pleasures that would help to make life worth living.

Of course, there are great industries and industrial centers in France.

The city of Lille was, before the war, the Pittsburg of France. This city was not only the center of the textile industry, but had scores and hundreds of factories and machine shops of all kinds. While the city itself was not totally destroyed, the factories were almost completely ruined. In some cases railroad tracks were laid into the buildings and whole trainloads of costly machinery were s.h.i.+pped out of the country. I saw the inside of many of these buildings where high explosives were used and all that was left was the sh.e.l.l of the building, the inside being one ma.s.s of twisted iron girders and broken concrete.

Of course, the idea of the enemy was to make it impossible for French factories to ever again compete with their own so they attempted to destroy all they left. They especially looked after all patterns and plans and thought they were making a clean sweep. In one case a great factory that covered sixty acres of ground was destroyed. But the owners had a branch factory in southern France and immediately began manufacturing duplicate machinery so that when the war closed all that was needed was the transportation facilities to get the machinery to Lille.

In the great coal fields about Lens the works and machinery were so completely destroyed that one could hardly tell there were coal mines in the district at all. The writer went over these ruins after the war closed and it is simply beyond the imagination to picture the actual conditions at that time. The course of small rivers and streams were changed so that the water could be run into these mines.

One quite remarkable distinction is noticeable to a stranger going through France and that is that an occasional factory seems to be located in the midst of an agricultural district. The land may be farmed on all sides up to the factory buildings. The men often work in these factories while the women and children and old men do the work on the farms.

Portions of southern France are noted for the beautiful vineyards.

Bordeaux and other brands of wine are famous the world around. Some of our boys are laughing yet about the French methods of making wine. The grapes are gathered and piled into a great vat. When this receptacle is filled, men, women and children take off their shoes and most all of their clothes and climb in. Here they walk and jump and tramp until the whole thing is a ma.s.s of pulp. In the meantime, the wine is continually draining out and being cared for by others.

After they have tramped out all the juice possible by this method the remains are put into a great press something like a cider press. After all the wine has been extracted by these various methods, they use the pulp in the manufacture of a powerful intoxicant, but this is not generally used as a beverage. Of course, all understand that in many places they have modern machinery and make wine along scientific lines, but in many cases they use these old methods to this day.

The courage of the French people is sublime. Even in the darkest days their faith never wavered and they firmly believed they would be victorious. As a monument of this faith there is in Paris today the most wonderful painting perhaps that was ever put upon canvas. It is called the "Pantheon de Guerre" and is a marvelous cycloramic painting of the war. It was opened up to the public soon after the armistice was signed and the writer saw it while attending the Peace Conference.

Many remember the wonderful representation of the Battle of Gettysburg which used to be in Chicago. This Paris cyclorama is along the same line, but ten times more wonderful. It is three hundred and seventy-four feet in circ.u.mference and forty-five high. The actual preparation of this began in October, 1914, and while the army of the invaders was within thirty miles of Paris and the big guns were shaking the city, more than twenty artists were working on the marvelous production.

The central figure is a woman, mounted upon a high pedestal, which stands in front of a huge temple, and she is holding aloft the laurel wreath of victory. Upon the first step of a giant stairway which leads to the temple is a group of French heroes which includes Joffre, Foch, Petain and many others, while in front of them are guns and flags bearing marks of conflict. The only allusion to Germany in the whole painting is in the battle-scarred flags and guns which were used in the first battle of the Marne. Upon this gigantic stairway are life-size figures of more than five thousand people nearly everyone of which is a life sketch of some French hero of the war. Among them are many women whose heroic work and influence will live forever.

Just across on the opposite side of the painting from this scene is depicted a gigantic tomb on the top of which is a group of soldiers holding aloft a great coffin in which is a dead companion. At the base and on the steps is a woman dressed in mourning, kneeling in the att.i.tude of prayer, while nearby is a wreath inscribed to the unknown dead. Back of the tomb in the distance you can see the rays of the setting sun and in some indescribable way they are lighting up the faces of those on the temple stairway like a beautiful rainbow of promise, while the tomb itself is left in the shadows of the declining day.

In the group representing Belgium it is only natural that Edith Cavil should have a prominent place. To be sure King Albert and his queen and others are there. As in Belgium the first casualties occurred it is fitting that here alone is seen a wounded man and the Red Cross workers are caring for him as he lies upon a stretcher. Here too, are seen the broken pieces of a cathedral tower with a chalice and altar and Cardinal Mercier in his priestly robes, while lying on the steps between him and the king is the torn "sc.r.a.p of paper."

But it would take pages of this book to give an adequate description of the entire panorama. Of course, all the allies are represented. In a group representing the United States, President Wilson is one of the chief figures. I am told that the picture of General Pers.h.i.+ng is a life-sized painting, which he was kind enough to sit for, to be used in this production. Here is also seen an American Indian, a cowboy, a merchant and an artisan. An American flag is borne aloft while four West Point cadets suggest training and leaders.h.i.+p. Women relief workers of all kinds are seen. Then extending entirely around the room above and back of all these groups is a profile map of France from the Channel to the Swiss border. Here can be seen the princ.i.p.al towns and cities involved during the war. Here, too, can be seen all the modern implements of war and everything is actual or life size.

As I stood gazing upon this wonderful production of artistic genius, my own brain almost reeled and staggered at the immensity and vividness of it. One moment the perspiration would break out and the next moment it was hard to keep the tears back. Pride, beauty, indignation, mourning, genius, art, science, invention, generals.h.i.+p, statesmans.h.i.+p, honor, love, tenderness, devotion, heroism and glory are all intermingled in a most marvelous way. The opportunity to behold and study this great panorama of the war is almost worth a trip to Paris. Then to think of the faith and courage it must have taken to work on and on while the sh.e.l.ls from the big guns were bursting at regular intervals during the day and the bombs dropping from the aeroplanes above at night; all this fills and thrills one's heart with admiration for the French people.

CHAPTER XI

SOME IMPRESSIONS OF THE GREAT PEACE CONFERENCE

For a month the writer listened to the heartbeat of nations as their representatives were gathered in the city of Paris. No other city ever had within its borders so many of the statesmen of nations. There were worked out the beginnings of the great problems that will mean the life of civilization.

Should the nations of the earth plan and make preparation for another war the race is imperilled. It is either universal peace or universal doom. Either some plan to stop war or preparation for the final judgment. Quit fighting or quit living. Peace or death.

The late war revealed the possibilities of human genius. Man's power to destroy has been discovered and across the sky can be seen in letters of blood the warning, "Abolish war or perish." Some say the war ended six months too soon, but had it continued that much longer, the probable results are too awful to contemplate. The Angel of Destruction had the sword lifted over Germany, but it was as though divine providence stayed his hand.

American genius was just coming into play. For instance, we are told that a gas had been discovered that is so deadly that a few bombs filled with it and dropped upon a city would all but wipe it out of existence.

When the armistice was signed hundreds of tons of that gas were ready for use and on the way to the battle front. Other inventions and discoveries have since been brought out that are too deadly to even talk about.

No one can describe the Peace Conference without giving great credit to our president, for without him it seemed that the leaders were unable to get anywhere. When he said that the time had come when the civilized nations of the earth should form an organization to abolish war the enthusiasm of the common people knew no bounds. A committee was at once appointed to work out a const.i.tution for such an organization and President Wilson was made the chairman.

Some problems touch only the rich and others have to do with the poor alone; some interest only the capitalist and others interest only those who toil with their hands; some absorb the thought of only the white race while others have to do with the black and yellow races; some have to do only with the educated while others reach none but the ignorant; but here is a problem that has to do with every family on the earth, rich or poor, capitalist or laboring man, white, black and all other colors and races--in fact, it touches every home and will do so as long as people live upon the earth.

To abolish war would rejoice the heart of every mother who has gone into the jaws of death to give birth to a son. It would bring grat.i.tude from the heart of every wife and sweetheart whose face has been bathed with tears as the last good-bys were on their lips. It would be a blessing to every child now living, as well as to the generations yet unborn. It would thrill the heart of every lover of justice and mercy and would answer the heart longings of millions who have prayed without ceasing for the reign of peace on earth among men of good will.

When President Wilson enunciated the fourteen points some wiseacres laughed and criticised, but these very points formed the basis of the armistice and the Good Lord only knows how many American lives were saved to say nothing of English, French, Italian and all the rest. No one knows how many are alive and well today who would have been sleeping in unknown and unmarked graves had the armistice been detained a single week.

The American headquarters in Paris during the Peace Conference were in the Hotel Grillion, which is on the Place de la Concorde in the heart of the city. The room number 351 belonged to the suite occupied by Colonel House and it was really the birth chamber of the League of Nations. The nineteen men who made up the committee belonged to fourteen nations.

President Wilson, as chairman, called them together in this room. The first meeting of this committee was held February third and was very brief. In all, ten meetings were held and all were held in this room.

President Wilson presided at all but one of them. Each man brought his suggestions in writing so there would be no chance for misunderstanding.

Full discussion of all points was always encouraged. When the entire const.i.tution was worked out it was agreed to unanimously and it was then ready to be presented to the Peace Conference.

Until the Peace Treaty was ready to sign all meetings of the great conference were held in the Foreign Ministry building in Paris. This is across the river Seine from the Concorde. Many supposed all meetings were held at Versailles but this is a mistake. Versailles is a city of some sixty thousand people and about ten miles from Paris. The old Palace is there but the great Hall of Mirrors where the treaty was finally signed could not be comfortably heated in the winter time. So for that as well as other reasons the meetings were held in Paris.

Through Mr. Ray Stannard Baker I received a pa.s.s to the Peace Conference. These pa.s.ses were only given to newspaper men and I represented People's Popular Monthly. The great day was February fourteenth, 1919. On this date eighty-four statesmen representing twenty-seven nations, the combined population of which is more than twelve hundred million people, were seated around one table. Clemenceau was the chairman of the conference and sat at the head of the table. By his side sat our own president, who at that time, towered head and shoulders above the statesmen of the world. Let politicians rave and senators criticize, yet the fact remains that Woodrow Wilson will have a place in history by the side of the immortal Lincoln and Was.h.i.+ngton.

When he was introduced our president read the const.i.tution, or covenant as it was called, and then made some remarks concerning it. While I stood listening to him as he thrilled the hearts and held almost breathless this company of statesmen and noted their faces as he said: "We are now seeing eye to eye and learning that after all, all men on this earth are brothers," my eyes are swimming in tears and I don't know yet whether it was the man speaking, what he said, or the way he thrilled those men, that caused it. I do know, however, that it was one of the greatest moments I ever lived.

Near the end of the table sat the black man from Liberia. How his face shone and his eyes sparkled when he heard these words! When he reached his homeland he no doubt told his people how the great American president championed a plan to abolish war and told the statesmen of the Peace Conference that the world is learning that all men on this earth are brothers, and the very hills of that black land echoed with praises for America.

Since that day the Chinese, who have never been warriors and love America anyway, have talked in their tea rooms and joss houses about the American President's plan to abolish war. In the villages of far away India, in the homes of the Sea Islanders and in fact wherever human beings have congregated they have talked of a world peace. But it was the peoples of the downtrodden, war-stricken nations especially who looked to our president as the great champion of liberty and freedom.

They believed that he was the "Big Brother" and that the country that he represented would see that they were treated fairly.

Representing the great western giant whose genius, power and marvelous accomplishments of a few short months filled all Europe with amazement and far out-distanced anything they had done in the three years before, standing at the head of the only unexhausted nation and which could dictate the policies of the world--for this man to go to the Peace Conference with a plan to forever abolish war, it simply won for himself and our country the admiration and confidence of the statesmen of the world. Nothing like it had ever been seen before and the grat.i.tude of all knew no bounds.

Then the modest, dignified, unselfish bearing of our president among them turned grat.i.tude into love and devotion. The words of far-sighted wisdom spoken everywhere brought from the greatest statesmen the recognition of leaders.h.i.+p. Without a single effort on his part to put himself forward, he became the natural leader of all.

A single instance of his thoughtfulness will be given. I was determined to see the tomb where General Pers.h.i.+ng stood when he uttered the famous words: "Lafayette we have come," and which made the whole French nation doff its hat and cheer. After hours of searching and miles of walking and inquiries galore, the place was found, but the door to the enclosure had to be unlocked with a silver key. When entrance was gained and the spot finally reached, there on the tomb was a wreath of flowers nearly as large as a wagon wheel and which, when they were fresh, must have been beautiful beyond words to described. Upon it was a card on which had been written in English the words: "The President of the United States of America. In memory of the great Lafayette from a fellow servant of liberty."

Then came the months of haggling, the work of selfish politicians both at home and abroad, and finally the rejection by our own people of the greatest piece of work since the beginning of the Christian era, all of which makes one who knows the real situation hang his head in shame. Why any living mortal in America could oppose a plan that has for its object the abolition of war is simply amazing to the people of Europe. Just before I left Paris in 1919 a French business man said to me: "I understand that the cables are saying that you have some men in your country who are opposing your president and this effort to abolish war.

What kind of men have you got over there, anyway? Go back and tell them that it is not only the greatest thing for America that he came over here but it is one of the greatest things for the whole world that ever happened."

In the fall of 1921 I made another trip to Europe and the change was beyond any power to describe. People who looked upon America as the one great nation of the earth almost sneered when they mentioned our att.i.tude toward the League of Nations. They have almost lost confidence in us and it will be hard to regain it. France is especially bitter.

Perhaps the result of the Disarmament Conference, which is practically the same thing under another name, will help them to forget some things, but the French will be slow to take up with it. We are all proud of the part our leaders had in this great meeting in Was.h.i.+ngton, but had our government stood enthusiastically for the League of Nations it would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars that we now have to dig up in taxes, and at the same time saved famine, fighting and hatred that it will take a long time to overcome.