Away yonder in eastern Siberia, on the banks of the Amur River, high on the projecting cliff stands a huge iron cross which can be seen many miles away. Upon this Christian emblem is inscribed one of the greatest sentences in all the literature of the world. Here it is: "Power lies not in force but in love." Strange it is indeed that such an emblem and such an inscription should be found in the wilds of this country. But many are the strange sights one beholds on a journey across this great lonely, strange, and sad land. Having crossed this country it is my purpose to recount some of the observations and experiences of the journey.
But few people today realize the immensity of Siberia. You could take a map of the whole United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and add to it a map of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria (before the war), Holland, Denmark, the Turkish Empire, Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria, and lay all these together down on Siberia alone and have territory left. Nearly five thousand miles of the main line of the great Trans-Siberian railway are in this one country.
The building of this railroad was a gigantic undertaking and its construction cost the Russian Government four hundred million dollars. With all our boasted American hustle it took twenty years to build the Canadian Pacific railway from coast to coast. The Trans-Siberian is more thantwice as long and was completed in half that length of time. Before the war there was hardly ever an accident on this railway. Every verst (about two-thirds of a mile) there is a little guardhouse and there was always a man or woman, generally a woman, standing with a flag as the train passed. I crossed on the International Sleeping Car train. It took ten days and ten nights and the average speed was more than twenty miles per hour.
The berths on this train were very comfortable. They were crosswise of the car while ours are lengthwise. The train consisted of two first-class, two second-class sleepers, a diner and a baggage car. These international trains ran once a week each way before the war and sometimes one had to purchase a ticket weeks in advance to go at a given time. When all berths were sold those who had none simply had to wait a week for the next train. I was the lone American on the train all the way across. There were a number of Englishmen and many Frenchmen on board.
My roommate was an old sea captain from Scotland. He had been on the sea forty-six years. Unfortunately his baggage was left at Harbin. He asked the chief of the train to wire back that it be forwarded on the next train, giving or rather offering a tip of a few shillings, but the chief would not give him any satisfaction. The next day the captain tried again, offering a tip of an English pound. This had the desired effect. In a few days we discovered that the English Consul from Yokohama was on board and laid the matter before him. Not long after this the train chief came and apologized and gave back the tip. I have wondered many times whether or not the captain ever received his baggage.
The dining car was a regular saloon on wheels. The first thirty minutes were spent by the waiters in soliciting orders for drinks. If you did not order anything to drink you were always served last. I had heard that it was almost impossible to get anything to eat on this train unless you were liberal in giving tips. So I started out to break the record—to cross Siberia without giving a tip on the diner. All went well for a couple of days. I was served all right. In fact, as long as I had the exact change everything was lovely. But when I gave the collector a bill he never came back with any change and I had to give it up. Such a feat as crossing Siberia without giving a tip in the diner could not be performed. The prices were not exorbitant, however, for one could get a fairly good meal for a dollar at that time.
Some of the great rivers of the world are in Siberia. It is said that if all the steel bridges on this main line were placed end to end they would make a great steel structure more than thirty miles long. These were all built too by Russian engineers. Lake Baikal is a long, narrow body of water in the heart of Siberia. It is said to be the most elevated lake on the globe and has the distinction of being the only body of fresh water in which seals will live. In some places no bottom has been found. When the railroad was first built trains were taken across this lake on gigantic ferries.
As the winters are long and cold, great ice-breakers were built to take the trains across during the winter time. It is actually said that these ice-breakers would slowly plow their way through thirty-six inches of ice. During the Russian-Japanese war these were too slow so they laid downheavy steel rails on the ice and all winter long trains were speeded across on this ice railway. Some time ago I made this statement in a lecture and as soon as the last word was spoken a Russian came forward saying: "I was a soldier in the Russian army and walked across this lake on the ice and saw them laying the rails at the time. It was then nearly sixty below zero."
Siberia is the greatest wheat country on earth. All our great northwest, with Canada thrown in, is but a mere garden spot as compared with Siberia. There are multiplied millions of acres of the finest wheat fields in the world in this great country that are as yet untouched. The Siberian women make the best bread of any cooks the world around. It is as white as the driven snow and so good and nourishing that no one who eats it can ever forget the taste.
Siberia is also one of the greatest dairy countries in the world. When the war broke out Siberia was actually supplying a large portion of Europe with dairy products. In two Siberian cities there were thirty-four large butter and dairy establishments. The Russian Government sent a professor of agriculture around the world to study the science and art of buttermaking. The results of his investigation were published in pamphlet form and sent to buttermakers and agriculturists. It is said that sometimes a thousand tons of Siberian butter have been delivered in London in a single week. It is also said that Great Britain was purchasing five million dollars worth of eggs per year from Siberia when the war broke out.
I learned something of the superstition of the Siberian peasant when cream separators were first introduced. It is said that when these hardworking people were told of machines that would separate the cream from milk instantly they declared that only a machine with a devil in it could do such a thing. But an enterprising foreigner went ahead and built a factory and about the time he had some of the separators ready for delivery a mob gathered, wrecked the factory and smashed the separators into smithereens, declaring that they would not have machines with devils in them in their country. That was years ago, however, and they have long since learned to use and appreciate these machines.
But the saddest sights I saw in Siberia were the trains loaded with exiles. These cars were not much better than stock cars and had iron bars across the windows. The sad faces within made one's heart ache to see them. As I rode in a comfortable car with a good bed to sleep in it was hard to keep from thinking of these unfortunate people who were herded like cattle in cold, dirty cars day after day and night after night for a month. Food was thrown to them almost as though they were pigs and at best this food was of the coarsest and most unsavory kind.
But their journey, packed in these unwarmed and unsanitary cars was so much better than what exiles had endured before the railroad was built, that one can hardly make a comparison. Then the exiles had to make the long four thousand mile journey on foot. It took about two years. Most of the convicts wore chains on their ankles that weighed five pounds and chains on their wrists that weighed two pounds. Sometimes these chains wore the flesh from the bones and the pain, as they trudged along their way, was simply terrible. Men and women were herded in droves like cattle.They had to make so many miles each day through storm or sunshine. Often it was midnight before they reached the sheds in which were the sleeping benches. Here they had to lie down on bare planks without any covering. There was no ventilation in these sheds except a bare window or two in the gable. In summer they sweltered and in winter they nearly froze to death.
As these unfortunate people slowly trudged along, the heartless guards on horseback whipped them and often prodded them with bayonets. Sometimes both men and women fell fainting and dying along the wayside. As two were nearly always chained together, the living was unlocked from the dead, the body kicked out of the way and even left unburied. In the heat of summer the dust nearly suffocated them and in the late autumn and early spring (they stopped in winter quarters in the coldest months), they often floundered along through mud nearly knee deep. Often the mud was frozen in the morning and their feet would break through. Perhaps their shoes were completely worn out, but no mercy was shown them and they had to make their way barefooted.
There was one thing the guards could not do, however, and that was to keep them still. As they went on their way they kept up a kind of a wail that was said to be the saddest chant that human ears ever heard. For miles and miles this mournful wail could be heard by the few people who lived in villages along the way. Sometimes, however, these villages were fifty or a hundred miles apart. But this wail was kept up continually. Every plan imaginable was used to stop it, but this could not be done and the guards and officers grew accustomed to it and let it go. No wonder thateven yet in Siberia the call of the milkmaid is something like the wail of the exiles.
One of the most thrilling events during the war was the opening of the Siberian prison doors in the spring of 1917, when more than one hundred thousand exiles walked out as free men and women. In the great Irkutsk prison a company of men were watching some of their fellow prisoners being flogged when a man appeared at the door saying: "Russia is a republic and you are all free." Instantly all was excitement. The officers fled for their lives. Even the prison blacksmiths fled, for they had welded the shackles on thousands of prisoners and they feared vengeance. Other smiths were pressed into service and were compelled to work all night long cutting these iron chains. Many were chained to wheelbarrows and of course could not get away until their irons were broken. A committee of public safety was formed at once and precautions taken. A banquet was prepared in the dismissed governor's palace and sixty men whose chains had not been cut loose sat down at the table with their chains rattling.
In one place the priest, while performing his duties in the church, heard the news and announced it. Fifty men rushed out to kill the local police captain who had been a regular tyrant. As they came to his home they were met by the captain's ten-year-old daughter, who stood in front of her father and calmly said: "You will have to kill me first," and thus she saved his life.
In five days after the revolution, six thousand exiles had reached Irkutsk from other prisons. By the way, Irkutsk is the capital of eastern Siberia and here the greatest prisons were located. It is said that as many as one hundred thousandprisoners have been in the great prisons in and around this city at one time. There were no trains for these freed exiles and they camped along the railroad track. Every day the company became larger. At one time it was said that fifty thousand sledges were rushing toward the railroad as fast as horses, dogs and reindeer could drag them. The snow was already melting and they were determined to get to the railroad before it was too late.
Those who think the great Russian Empire is nothing but cold, bleak, barren waste, will have to think again. In 1913 there were eleven million acres planted in potatoes, five and one-half million acres of flax and hemp and nearly two million acres in cotton. They even had one hundred and fifty thousand acres in tobacco. In all there were in cultivation nearly four hundred million acres of land. In 1914 Russia and Siberia possessed thirty-five million head of horses, fifty-two million head of cattle, seventy-two million sheep, and fifteen million head of hogs.
Of All the countries in Europe, conditions in Russia are perhaps most deplorable. With the granary of the world her people have the least food. A few years ago her laws were the most rigid of all countries, now she is nearest without law of any of them. With all her boundless resources, she is as helpless as a child. Like poor old blind Samson, she has lost her strength and is a pitiful sight to behold.
But the purpose of this article is not to recount the horrors the war brought to Russia. I would much rather tell something about the people as I saw them just before the war, and their country and cities in times of peace. Some day these people will have a stable government. They have suffered for a long time, but out of it all will come a purified people and a government in which the people will have some rights and privileges worth while. The writer of these lines does not pose as a prophet, but will say that in twenty-five years Russia will have the best government in Europe.
The Russian people are a race of farmers. When the war broke out eighty-five per cent of the people lived in the country. Although a nation having one-sixth of the earth's surface, yet she has only a few large cities. It is actually said that years ago people had to be chained in the cities to keep them from moving to the country.
The people, as a rule, are honest-hearted, hard-working people, who have never had a chance. They are ignorant and often superstitious. They have been used to hardship and cruelty. In the old days a man was beaten three hours a day for debt and after a month sold as a slave if no onecame to his rescue. Thieves and other criminals were hanged, beheaded, broken on a wheel, drowned under the ice or whipped to death. "Sorcerers were roasted alive in cages; traitors were tortured by iron hooks which tore their sides into a thousand pieces; false coiners had to swallow molten metal," says one writer.
Woman was considered the property of man and her glory was to obey her husband as a slave obeys his master. No eyes could look upon her face and she was shut up like a prisoner. They used to think that if a husband beat his wife it was the sign he loved her. The Russian proverb says: "I love thee like my soul, but I beat thee like my jacket."
Never will I forget the time spent in Moscow. The great center of the city is the Kremlin Palace and at the time of my visit it contained riches untold. Of course, the Bolshevists have looted it long before this. In it at that time was the largest gun ever made before the war, but it had never been fired. Also the largest bell ever cast was there, but this had never been rung. In front of this palace is the famous Red Square, and this has no doubt been red with blood many times during these terrible years of Bolshevist rule. If the very stones upon which people walk could speak, a wave of horror would sweep around the world.
Perhaps the most curious church in the world is that of Saint Basil the Blessed, which is in the city of Moscow. It has nearly a dozen spires most curiously built and no one seeing it can ever forget it. It is said that the eyes of the Italian architect who built it were put out so he could never build another like it. The Russian people are very religious and Moscow is their sacred city. At the sight of the glittering crosses the peasants cominginto the city for the first time would often fall upon their faces and weep.
This sacred city has passed through some horrible times. Famine has raged and the ravages of hunger caused parents to eat the flesh of their own children. Pestilence at one time stalked through the city like a mighty conqueror and a hundred and twenty thousand people perished before it could be checked. Nearly the entire city has gone up in smoke on more than one occasion and yet it still lives. When I was there its streets were ablaze with electric lights at night and thronged with shopping multitudes by day, but all this is changed at this time.
If we can believe the historian, orgies have taken place in this city that would make it, for the time being, a rival of Hades itself. When the Russians turn against a man their hatred knows no bounds. In one case they caught a pretender for the throne and almost continuously for three days they tortured him in every imaginable way, shape and form. After he was finally killed they were so afraid that he might come to life that they took his body, burned it to ashes, loaded them in a cannon and fired it, scattering them to the four winds.
One of the empresses of Russia became enraged at one of the princes whose wife had died and she compelled him to marry an old ugly woman whose nickname was "Pickled Pork." One historian says: "The marriage festival was celebrated with great pomp: representatives of every tribe and nation in the Empire took part, with native costumes and musical instruments: some rode on camels, some on deer, others were drawn by oxen, dogs and swine. The bridal couple were borne in a cage on an elephant's back. A palace wasbuilt entirely of ice for their reception. It was ornamented with ice pillars and statues, and lighted by panes of thin ice. The door and window posts were painted to represent green marble: droll pictures on linen were placed in ice frames. All the furniture, the chairs, the mirrors, even the bridal couch, were ice. By an ingenious use of naphtha the ice chandeliers were lighted and the ice logs on the ice grates were made to burn! At the gates two dolphins of ice poured forth fountains of flame: vessels filled with frosty flowers, trees with foliage and birds, and a life-sized elephant with a frozen Persian on its back adorned the yard. Ice cannon and mortars guarded the doors and fired a salute. The bride and groom had to spend the night in their glacial palace."
For centuries the common people of Russia were afraid to open their mouths. Detectives were everywhere and half of the people exiled to Siberia had no idea what they had committed. One of the secret service men might visit a peasant home disguised as a tramp or agent. Allowed into the humble home he would examine the books on the table if any were there, and should he find a sentence tabooed by the government, the farmer who gave the stranger a place to eat and sleep would likely be exiled, although he had never read a line in the book.
I have seen these detectives on trains, at depots, in hotels, always watching everybody. No proprietor of a hotel would keep a stranger over night without the guest's passport in his possession. One of these secret service men might come in at midnight and if he found a stranger or even a name on the register without an accompanying passport, the landlord might have to go to prison and ofcourse they took no chances. As soon as I registered at a hotel in Moscow the landlord had to have my passport in his possession.
All things considered it is not at all surprising that when the restraint was removed the people went to the greatest possible extreme. It is not surprising that they all wanted to talk and speechify. Every man had some grievance or something to talk about. While the peasants were honest and trusted each other, yet there have developed so many traitors that now they do not know who they can trust. The great mass of people are like a lot of sheep without a shepherd and can be led or driven in any direction. Of all people, they are perhaps most to be pitied.
A Russian gentleman recently expressed his conviction to the writer that the only hope for the country is in the church people. They are very religious and the Orthodox church was rich in priceless treasure and lands. But the Bolshevists looted and robbed the churches, which of course enraged the people. They were held in check by alluring promises, but these promises were not fulfilled and their eyes are now opened and they will rise up, so this man hopes, and overthrow Bolshevism. One thing is certain and that is that the Bolshevist leaders have recently made all kinds of concessions to the people.
As the darkest days in the history of the Chosen Race in Bible times was when "every man did what was right in his own eyes," so these Russian folks have been passing through just such a time. There has not been any law to speak of and every man has been doing as he pleases with everything he could get his hands on. But as Russia has produced some of the master minds of the ages someof us believe that some of these times a leader will appear who will bring order out of chaos. As a rule, in the days agone, when the people of a great nation were really ready for a mighty step forward the good Lord raised up a man to lead them.
Passing the great estate of Tolstoi I could not help thinking of one of his marvelous word pictures and as it concerns everyone of us it will not be out of place to call attention to it here. As the story goes a youth had fallen heir to his father's estate and this taste of wealth made him crazy for the lands adjoining the little homestead. One fine morning this young man was greeted in the highway by a fine looking nobleman who said he had taken a liking to him and had decided to give him all the land he could cover during one day. As they stood at the corner of the little homestead at the grave of his father the stranger said to the young man: "You may start now and walk all day, but at sundown you must be back here at your father's grave."
Without even stopping to tell his wife the good news, or bid her and their little child good-bye, the young man started. At first thought he decided to cover a tract six miles square which would mean a walk of twenty-four miles, but he had only gotten well started when the plan was enlarged to a square of nine miles. The morning was so cool and fine and he felt so strong that he increased it to twelve miles and still later he made it a square of fifteen miles, which would mean a walk of sixty miles before sundown. By noon he had made the thirty miles but so great was his fear of failure he decided not to stop for lunch. An hour later he saw an old man at a wayside spring, but feltthat he must not stop even for a drink of water and rushed on his way.
By the middle of the afternoon he had discarded his coat and a little later threw away his shirt. An hour before sunset it was a race for life. His heart had almost stopped beating and his eyes began to bulge from their sockets. As the sun touched the horizon he was still many rods from the starting point. With all the strength of both body and soul he lunged forward and just as the sun went out of sight he staggered across the line and fell into the arms of the stranger who was there to meet him, but when he fell he wasdead.
"I promised him," said the stranger, "all the ground he could cover. Strictly speaking, it is about two feet wide and six feet long. And I drew the line here at his father's grave because I thought he would rather have the land he could cover close to his father than to have it anywhere else." "Then the stranger—death—slipped away," says Dr. Hillis, who tells the story, saying: "I always keep my pledge." So they buried the man with the land-hunger.
The Russian people have just gotten a taste of liberty and are as crazy as was the man with the land-hunger. All hope and trust that they will see their condition before the nation comes to a death struggle, but they have passed the meridian and entered the dangerous part of the day and if the leader does not soon come who can stop their onward sweep, they will be in the last great struggle and the death rattle will be heard. But terrible as the situation is at this writing, however, there are some signs of a better day, and as long as there is life there is hope. Some of us still believe that the day will come when Russia will be a mighty and powerful nation.
We read in ancient history that Xerxes whipped the sea, but this chapter will give a glimpse of a nation that conquers the sea. A million acres of the best land in Holland have actually been rescued from the water, and at this hour a large lake is being drained which means that hundreds of thousands of acres will soon be rescued from the sea and be made to blossom as the rose.
The country of Holland is about the size of the state of Maryland. One-fourth of its entire area is below the sea level, and its great dykes were they placed end to end, would make an immense dam more than fifteen hundred miles long and in some places from thirty to sixty feet high. Almost the entire country is a network of canals. A single one of these canals cost more than fifteen million dollars and it is less than fifty miles in length.
The faith of these Holland people in times of adversity is one of the wonders of history. For a hundred years they struggled against powerful Spain, but their faith saved them. It is said that at the siege of Leyden they were reduced to such desperate straits that all they had to eat was dogs and cats. In derision they were called "dog and cat eaters." They replied to their enemies: "As long as you hear the bark of a dog or the mew of a cat the city holds. When these are gone we will devour out left arms, retaining the right to defend our homes and our freedom. When all are gone we will set fire to the city and with our wives and children perish rather than see our families destroyed and our religion desecrated."
Think of it! A country one-half of which is below the level of the water, some of it sixteen feet lower than the ocean, which is only a few miles away! What watchfulness and anxiety bordering upon fear must occupy every moment, both day and night! In a single century there were thirty-five great inundations which literally swallowed up several hundred thousand people. Instead of being disheartened, like ants, they went to work at once to rebuild the dykes, and with the aid of hundreds of gigantic windmills pumped the water back into the sea.
These windmills are not only used to pump water, but they saw wood, grind corn, crush seeds, make paper, and do about everything else. While they are imperilled all the time by water, they make the water serve them in numerous ways. Their fences are ditches filled with water. How their cattle and horses have been trained to stay in, a small lot surrounded by narrow ditches filled with water which they could easily jump over, is a mystery, but every visitor to Holland has seen it with his own eyes.
These Dutch people are great farmers and stock raisers. As their country has no minerals, the people depend upon agriculture more perhaps than in any other part of the world. Supporting a population of four hundred and seventy people to the square mile, every foot of the land of course is tilled carefully. The main agricultural product is potatoes, of which they raise about one hundred million bushels per annum. Then come oats, twenty million bushels, rye, fifteen million and about a third as much wheat.
The Hollanders build ships, refine sugar, dredge oysters, distill liquor and brew beer. Theymanufacture carpets, leather and paper goods, make chocolate, cut diamonds as well as produce gold and silver articles and pottery. The farmer uses his cow like one of the family. He keeps her in the house when the weather is cold, washes and combs her hair more often than his own, and keeps her room as clean as the parlor. She chews her cud contentedly and the only thing about her which is tied up is her tail, which is generally fastened to a beam above to keep it from getting soiled. Of course, milk, butter and cheese are not a small part of the living of these people. Often in a Holland home the sitting room, dining room and sleeping room are one and the same. People often sleep in bunks one above the other like berths on a ship or sleeping car.
The great bird in Holland is the stork, which is kept and given a home because of the service rendered in keeping down toads and frogs. The people who live in the lowest ground make nests for the storks upon posts erected for the purpose, and almost every Dutch city has a pet colony of these birds. The Dutch folk-lore tells of the tragedy of the stork colony away back in the fifteenth century which occurred during the breeding season. The town of Delft caught fire and when the older storks made ready for flight their offspring were too young to fly and too heavy to be carried, and rather than leave their young, the old birds went back to their nests and perished.
The two great recreation amusements that everybody engages in are cycling and skating. Roads are good so that the former can be practiced the year around, while the latter, of course, can only be indulged in during the winter time. These people become so skilled on the ice that they canbeat an express train, and to skate a hundred miles in an afternoon is an ordinary excursion. Some years ago a record of four miles in five minutes was established which is "going some" on skates.
In the beginning of winter when the skating season opens, the young men and maidens have a great time going to the city of Gouda. The young men go to buy long pipes and bring them home safely in their mouths or pockets. The fair maidens try to waylay them and break these pipes. Likewise the maidens purchase brittle cakes and attempt to carry them home in bags without breaking them up, and the young men endeavor to knock the bags from their hands and thus, "break the cake." They all have a gay time.
Skating is ruled by a sort of a national society. The fee is so small that everyone can join it. This society decides when skating is safe, marks the routes and employs sweepers to keep these highways clear from snow, etc. Everyone must obey the rules laid down by this society, consequently accidents are rare. One week each year they have a great festival called the "Kermis," which is not unlike the old-fashioned carnival in this country. All kinds of amusements are engaged in and all have a jolly time. St. Nicholas Day, which occurs on December fifth, is also a great day in Holland, especially for the children.
The largest city in Holland is Amsterdam, which contains more than one-half million people. This is a walled city, but the walls are water in the shape of canals. There are four of them, the outermost being called the Single or "Girdle." Across these canals are smaller canals running diagonally and the city itself is as though built on a thousand islands.
These larger canals are almost filled with ships of various sizes and boats and barges fill the smaller ones. The city has the appearance of being built on the water, canals serving the purposes of streets. The ground used to be a great marsh and the entire city is practically built on piles which are driven down sometimes eighty feet.
One great palace in the city stands upon fourteen thousand piles. One would think the buildings would collapse in the course of time, and some of them are all out of shape, but the people are so used to seeing the buildings lean, almost like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, that they think nothing about it. Once in awhile the road will give way under a heavily loaded truck, but they pry the load out, repair the roadway, and go ahead as though the highway were built upon solid rock.
That the people of Amsterdam are religious is shown by the fact that there are many large churches in the city. The front of the great palace called the Dam has a hundred windows and only one little insignificant entrance. It has been called "the palace without a door." Just across the square is the Exchange with a great portico supported by seventeen columns. Some have called this "A door without a house."
Like New York, Amsterdam has its Ghetto, in which more than sixty thousand Jews are packed almost like sardines in a box, and most of these live in the direst poverty and misery imaginable. However, just beside this Ghetto live wealthy Jewish families, and one of the great synagogues is so magnificent that they claim it represents the Temple of Solomon.
As noted above the gigantic task of draining the Zuyder Zee has already been started. This greatlake is a hundred miles long and half as wide, and used to be a great forest. Between seven and eight hundred years ago, this forest and some better lands consisting of farm lands and cities, were destroyed by the River Chim. A writer in the Scientific American, quoted in the Literary Digest, says:
"Then Neptune looked down with longing eyes for his own. About the middle of the thirteenth century, the North Sea broke through the upper sand dunes and swept over the land. Hundreds of villages with their inhabitants were engulfed and destroyed. Geographical continuity was obliterated, and Holland found herself cut in two by an ocean eighty-five miles long from north to south, and from ten to forty-five broad. It proved, moreover, quite as treacherously dangerous a sea as that which divided her from Britain."
The capital city of Holland contains more than a quarter of a million people. Perhaps the most outstanding building in The Hague is the Palace of Peace. It was dedicated August 28, 1913. Something like twenty countries contributed materials for this great building. The granite in the base of the walls came from Norway and Sweden, the marble in the great corridor is Italian; Holland supplied the steps in the great stairway, and the group of statuary at the foot of this stairway came from Argentina.
The stained glass in the windows of the Court of Law came from Great Britain, and the rosewood in the paneling of the Council Chamber is Brazil's contribution. Turkey and Roumania each supplied carpets, Switzerland furnished the clock, and Belgium the iron work on the door at the main entrance. Our own contribution was a groupof statuary in marble and bronze at the first landing of the great stairway. Russia and China furnished vases, Japan sent silken curtains, and France furnished a magnificent painting. Thus the nations builded together and we all hope the dream for which this Palace of Peace stands will soon become a reality. We are glad that the building is now open again.
For more than four years Holland occupied perhaps the most difficult position in which any country was ever placed. Every day of that time she was between the "devil and the deep sea." Compelled to be ready for invasion every moment, yet trying to remain strictly neutral, she had the job of feeding hundreds of thousands of refugees. These were anxious months and years, but the Dutch did most remarkably well and kept their heads above water all the time. No people were more happy to see peace come although they were compelled to harbor the greatest enemy civilization ever had.
During the world war the eyes of the world were upon Belgium and it is quite fitting that an article be devoted to this little country whom the world honors. Although one of the smallest of all the independent nations yet before the invasion this little country stood eighth in wealth and sixth in export and import trade among the nations. Texas is more then twenty times as large as Belgium. Although not nearly all her land is under cultivation yet she supported seven and a half million people and before the war it is said she had no paupers.
This little country has been called the "balance wheel of the world's trade." The city of Antwerp is said to have forty miles of quays—ahead of New York City. When the war broke out Belgium had just completed a ten million dollar canal and had spent eighty million dollars on her waterways. Her commercial and industrial interests were amazing. She had one hundred and eighty factories for the manufacture of arms alone. A single engine factory in Liege turned out two thousand large engines complete, annually. The zinc foundries and cycle works of this one city are world famous.
Belgium had the cheapest railroad fare of any country on earth. Twenty-four of her thirty-two lines were government owned. One could purchase a third-class ticket, good for five days going anywhere over these lines for $2.35. One could ride to his work on the railway train twenty milesand back each day for a whole week for the insignificant sum of thirty-seven and one-half cents. This made it possible for even the poorest people to travel and many of them did. The city of Brussels had two hundred passenger trains entering and leaving the two great depots every twenty-four hours.
Belgium gave the world the greatest example of thrift ever known. Surely, if ever a nation needed such an example, we did and do. Belgium could live well from the crumbs that fall from our tables. Were the American people as thrifty as the Belgians, we could save all the war cost us, including the soldiers' bonus, in a generation. There, everybody works, even father. While the people are poor, yet, as noted above, it was a country without paupers and will soon be so again.
The government paid interest on savings and encouraged even the poorest to have a savings account. Such an account could be started with one franc and could be opened at any post office. Our thrift stamp idea came from Belgium. The farmer or working man could buy a small plot of ground, build a little home for his family, be insured against sickness or accident, even though he hardly had a dollar to start with. The government would back him and he could borrow money from the national savings bank system.
The Belgians are said to have the best courts in existence. With a single judge in the Supreme Court, cases are reviewed quickly while everything is fresh in mind and witnesses and all other evidence is easily obtained, and the decisions of the lower courts either reversed or sustained at once without any lost motion whatever. The lowercourts are open for the settlement of all disputes. The judge cross-questions both sides without any lawyers to interfere and the poorest wage earner can have his wrongs righted without a cent's expense. The assistance of an attorney is hardly ever needed and not one decision in a hundred is appealed.
The contribution of Belgium to farming and stock raising has been immense. Most of the soil is thin and has been used for centuries, and yet she raises more than twice as much wheat per acre as the Dakotas and harvests as much as $250 worth of flax per acre. A few centuries ago the district between Antwerp and Ghent was a barren moor called Weasland. Today every inch of this land is cultivated and is dotted by some of the finest farms in Belgium. This entire sandy district was covered, "cartload by cartload, spadeful by spadeful with good soil brought from elsewhere." It is now like a great flower garden and in fact much of it is flower beds. The city of Ghent is known as the flower city of Europe, there being a hundred nursery gardens and half as many horticultural establishments in the suburbs of this one city.
A marvelous thing about Belgian agriculture is that they rotate the soil rather than the crops. Their methods of intensive farming are so wonderful that if North and South Dakota could be farmed as is Belgian soil, nearly all the people in the United States could move to these two states and be fed. Belgium is a land of very small farms and it is said that the poorest agricultural laborer has a better chance to become a land owner than in most any other country. Until auto trucks made their appearance the great drays of London and New York were drawn by Belgian horses. Belgianstallions often take the blue ribbons at our great state fairs and our farmers have found that the Belgian breeds of stock are second to none. Even Belgian hares are most prolific and most profitable of any breed of rabbits in this country today.
The contribution in architecture of this little country to the world has been so great and her churches and public buildings so stately that Belgium has been called, "The Jewel box of Europe." Of course, many of her great cathedrals and public buildings were damaged or destroyed, but they will, in a large measure, at least, be restored.
The art of Belgian painters is world famous and graces the finest galleries in both Europe and America. Many of the paintings of Rubens and other master artists are almost priceless. As lace makers the women of Belgium are famous the world around. From early morning until late at night these toilers sit in their low chairs and the skill with which they shoot the little thread-bobbins back and forth across the cushions is indescribable. Neither men nor women in Belgium are overly much given to amusements. They work with all their might, but when the national holidays come they abandon themselves to the amusements for the moment and have a most enjoyable time.
While many are illiterate, the Belgians are giving much attention to schools these times. Even while they were guests of France, with their government located at Havre, they established twenty-four schools for the children and a single woman had more than five thousand pupils under her care and direction. They also established large schools at that place for disabled soldiers and many of them became not only skilled workers, butinventors. One of these disabled men invented a process to make artificial limbs out of waste paper and it is said that these limbs are the best made. Many of these legless soldiers with artificial limbs can walk so well that one would never imagine that they had been wounded.
Providence seems to have made Belgium the great battlefield of Europe. Nearly every great general of European history has fought on Belgian soil. When the Spaniards looted Belgian cities and set up the inquisition it seemed as though the very imps of the lower regions were turned loose. I have looked upon many of the instruments of torture that can still be seen in European museums and they were even more terrible than anything used in the late war. Again and again has Belgian soil been drenched with blood. Only a little more than one hundred years ago the hosts of Napoleon and Wellington decided the destiny of nations at the battle of Waterloo.
Here was this great hive of industry, with the wheels of her factories humming and her people happy, industrious and contented up to that fateful day in August, 1914. No people were more loyal to their ideals, more trustful of others or more anxious to serve humanity than these honest-hearted, hard-working people. They felt secure, for the treaty which protected them had been signed by all the nations around them. This treaty had been held sacred for more than eighty years and was to last as long as time. It had held them secure during the great crisis of 1870-1871 and when the war cloud gathered in Austria and Servia they felt secure.
Soon, however, it became plain that Germany had been planning for years to crush this littlecountry like an egg shell. Four double-track lines of railway had been built up to the Belgian border. Miles of concrete platforms had been built, but no suspicions had been aroused. When the enemy started across Belgium he had better maps of the country than any Belgian had ever seen. At once many Germans in Belgium left their homes silently and the surprise of Belgian neighbors can be better imagined than described when they saw their old friends coming back with the enemy's army. They had been spies all these years.
When the great siege guns were brought from their hiding places in the Krupp factories into Belgium, the foundations for them were already there. These guns were so heavy that the London Times stated that it took thirteen traction engines to pull a single one of them. They threw shells that weighed almost a ton twenty miles and a single one of them would destroy a building as large as our own national capital building in Washington. So accurately had these foundations been placed that scarcely a single shell was wasted.
It is said that years ago some so-called German university men asked the Belgian Government for permission to study the geology of their country. This permission was granted freely. But these were mostly military men and spent months investigating and surveying and marking certain places. Once more these men came to the Belgian Government stating that they wished to study the formation of rocks and soil which would necessitate digging into the earth and as they did not wish to be bothered by the public, asked permission to build barricades around the places where they worked. Their request was granted instantly andby this means they built the foundations for these great siege guns.
Finally the fateful day came. Germany told Belgium that she intended going across her territory anyway and if she would allow this to be done peaceably she would pay her double price for everything destroyed; that it would be to her best interests to allow this and that she might have twelve hours to think it over. In the darkest hours of the war, when it seemed that the Germans would be victorious, I heard the Belgian minister in Washington say in an address: "Yes, they gave us twelve hours to decide, but they gave us eleven hours and fifty-nine minutes too much time." As long as time, it will be remembered to the glory of Belgium that she told Germany instantly to stay upon her own territory; that the world would never say that Belgium went back upon her word; that if war came she would remain neutral as in the treaty she had agreed to do. The minister referred to above also said in this darkest hour: "They now have all but three hundred square miles of our territory, but what will it profit a man though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.' We have lost our property, but we have saved our soul, and if it were to do over again we would do exactly the same thing."
Brave little Belgium! For four and one half years she stood bleeding and with her head bowed in sorrow! Her homes were destroyed, her old men and women shot down like dogs, her women outraged, her youths and maidens enslaved, her little children misused, but Belgium still lives, and always will live in the hearts of men and women wherever civilization is known! Her King and Queen were brave and heroic through all thosehorrible times; her church leaders could not be bought or sold, and her common people were true as steel. As a nation she blundered in days agone, but what nation has not made mistakes? Belgium saved democracy for a thousand years and is today the nation that the whole world honors.
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, canals, 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 paidin 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 onlythe 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 amusements, 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 amusements 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 almostcompletely ruined. In some cases railroad tracks were laid into the buildings and whole trainloads of costly machinery were shipped 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 shell of the building, the inside being one mass 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 mass 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 threehundred and seventy-four feet in circumference 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 attitude 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 "scrap 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 Pershing 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 leadership. 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 principal 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, generalship, statesmanship, 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 shells 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.
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 constitution 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 gratitude 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, butthese 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 constitution 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 notbe 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 pass to the Peace Conference. These passes 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 Washington.
When he was introduced our president read the constitution, 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 thegreat 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 gratitude of all knew no bounds.
Then the modest, dignified, unselfish bearing of our president among them turned gratitude into love and devotion. The words of far-sighted wisdom spoken everywhere brought from the greatest statesmen the recognition of leadership.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 Pershing 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 overhere 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 attitude 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 Washington, 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.