FRANCE PRESENTS
FIRM FRONT TO FOE
_ . . ! • ■ . •
(Written for the I'nited Press by
(leorge I). Cribble Copyright.
1!»1S, by Cnlted Press*
PA PIS. July 1. After four years of
war. Fram e has found herself
As I writ*; this, in tin* suburbs of
Paris, there is a ceaseless, sinister
muttering, faint and persistent, in
creasing ominously when tin* breeze
comes from the northeast. Those who
were here In the fall of 11*14 know
what that distant growl means and
whither it is tending. Two years later
it came to us again across the hills
from Verdun. 'Hu* fate of the struggle!
is still on the knees of the gods. Hut
whatever betide, this much is certain
— the victory of the Marne has been
fought out to its final conclusion. At
last Franc** has found herself
For there was a double battle of the
Marne There was the military battle,
whirl*, like Valmy, some hundred and
twentv y' .iis earlier, revealed the real
France to an astounded universe, and.
like Valmy. failed f*» reap the full
traits of victory. There was also the
real Moral Hattie of the Marne, which
was engaged, simultaneously, against
the enemy within the gates. It has
taken close on four years to crush
him, for he was powerfully intrenched
and had as many heads as the hydra ,
John Bunyan would have called
these evil forces Political Corruption.
Collusion. Compromise. National Fgot
ism. Inertia. Avarice, Self-Indulgence
Doubtless they are by no means pecul
iar to France, but what It is not easy
to realize is the extent to which these
forces had leagued together—the enor
mous strength of this infernal pact !
Hut those who do realize, who have;
seen through long years before the!
war the spread of the poison, do not
throw up their hands in horror and
alarm every time a new Bolo is
brought to book, and cry out against
the rottenness of the state.
The Mieinterpretera
nisiory win note, witn little pleas
im\ 1 think, that the epic years of
1914-18 were also the heyday for irre-i
sponsible chroniclers. From these
France has had to suffer, perhaps more
than any of her allies And tills be
oan-u she. less than other modern na
tions, can he judged by average stand
ards Not only her enemies, her ad
miring iriemls have also been often In
discriminating. not to say obtuse,
■/‘ax ilia made a furious declaration of
love, they feel too often that the
ardor of their passion is a master key
to all i he problems of her organism,
"it I can pronounce. <>r rather write,
jc vims aime.' isn't that enough?” ap
peeis to an all too common argu
ment. if not an excuse, for Mintinuiug
blithely in the well trodden paths of
vasy generalizations.
It i: therefore not surprising that
m; n\ Frenchmen read with some anx
iety tl * explanation of their acts, the
interpretati >n of their morality, which
•'M l ' ar in print some thousand miles
away
Kvery month, if not oftener. we are
assured that the morale of any and
every one* of the allied countries was
never so high as at the present mo
ment I’he assurance recurs with the
same regularity in all reviews of sit
uatioiis as that other assurance of
the i.hii-iul communique that all enemy
raids are ill-starred. Vet we know
that enemy raids occasionally succeed,
and we have a general notion that
the barometer of a nation's morale is
not invariably at “beau fixe.” or what
\w < all “tine and dry."
Some Depression
In Frame as elsewhere there have
been fluctuations during four years.
About a year ago, when for reasons
which were not clear an offensive was
discontinued which seemed big with
promise, there was a marked depres
sion When Russia, after a last mag
i!it omt effort to make good, threw
up the* sponge and settled down into
holshevikism. the barometer went
down it registered a decided drop
after the Caporetto disaster last fall
If it had been otherwise, the French
would have been a race of supermen,
more worthy of admiration than of
sympathy. If at those moments Lu
dendorff had been reads on tin* west
ern front, if he could have captured
tin* “< hemin des Dames’’ just then,
If tie (lotha squadrons had been stif
flcieiuiy drilled and Krupp’s super
cannon in place Just then, if America
had shown herself less ready and de
termined well, things might have
turned out differently.
These “ifs” were not realized. Now
it is too late France had not then
finished finding herself. She has now
Politically France found herself
when ('.eorges ('lemenccau seized, one j
might say "wrested." the rudder of
state out ol the hands of his predeees-,
sors and started to man the ship for
tin* storm which was drawing up front
tile east. The speeches from the
bridge ceased abruptly There wen
only short, peremptory orders. There j
was also a roll-call Those who had
proved their worth kept posts of com
mand. Such was the case with Chief)
Knginccr davellle ami Stoker-in
Chief Loucheur. One of the most
important changes was the. appoint
ment of a new chief steward, whereby
a weak spot in former administrations
was transformed into a bulwark ot
strength llis name is Victor Horet
and it should lie written in letters ol j
gold
An Original Man
lb- resembles I.udcndorff in ibis,
that he has a way of upselling well
established war axioms. There was
one in France about the inviolability
of daily bread. To tamper with the
staff ol life to whittle it down, it
was affirmed, would mean disaster.
Victor Horet proved the contrary The
institution of meatless days, alter last
year's experiment, was declared by
economists to lie a failure. People
simply bought what they needed tin
eve of the meat fast and often ate
more meat than they would have done
under normal conditions. Victor Ho
ret again proved the contrary by the
simple device of restricting meat pur
chases on the day preceding the three
meatless days.
As for municipal butcher shops, we
had heard about them for a long time.
Theoretically they were approved,
but practically held to be unreAliz
able. They are now an established
fact and working famously So much
so that rival concerns are asking to
be "municipalized."
in fact, the stomach of France-,
which had always been declared to
be the delicate spot in her body po
litic, needing special humoring, has
proved surprisingly robust and tract
-,i,i,.
Reward in Sight
And already the reward Is in sight!
The Admirable Boret has announced
that the end of food restrictions is in
view and that no new ones are con
tern plated. The price of meat shall
decrease, and meatless days shall
have their end ere long, lor then* is
no longer any danger of the national
livestock being exhausted The Ber
man food dictVior having announced
;i further cutting down of bread ra
tions, our national hem lunar) declares
that ours shall soon he increased
But the gladdest tidings of all in
this respect is the official announce
ment that France is looking forward
to the best harvest ■"'lie has known in
twenty years This news is not based
merely on tin* reports of agricultural
boards. It is tin* result of first-hand
knowledge. For, like his chief, our
food controller visits his front-line
trenches, in this case the grain coun
tries of France.
In every limb, in everv muscle.
France has found herself
Finding America
And with the finding of her own
true self comes another discovery
that of her latest ally. Wonderful,
tales about the efficiency of Ameri
can effort. American organization.
American determination, had been,
heralded across the Atlantic for many
months. Nor wen* they entirely dis
credited But the> had to travel so
many miles and France was in the
third year of war! Could it all he
true? Was not this “Land of Fnlitn-1
ited Possibilities" some “Never-Never
Land"?
For all answer America rose up
bodily and stepped across the Atlan
tic.
For twelve months France, marvel-j
ling, watched America do yeoman
service. Again the promise seemed to
be too good to he realized Then
came the Marne, where golden spurs
are won. and all doubts end.
LONDON. July LM.». To encourage
tramway car motormen to be econom
i al in power consumption, the London
county council lias prepared a bonuA
scheme under which drivers are to
get f>0 per cent, of the value--of tin*
electricity they are able to save
YOUR COLORS NO LONGER 1
ARE “MADE IN GERMANY”)
WASHINGTON, July 30.—America
has given the knockout to one of Her-1
many's pet industries Figures made j
public today show the United States
has the largest dyestuffs industry in
the world
Three years ago this country was
utterly dependent on German dyes; j
only 3,310) tons of coal tar products i
were turned out in a year. Now 135 j
factories are making dyes, and more |
than $300,000,000 in capital is at work
building up Uncle Sam's healthy in
dustry.
Before the war this country Im
ported 33,000 tons of dyestuffs annu
ally from Germany.
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AWAKE
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•
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