FROM ROME TO COLOGNE WITH LA FOLLETTE
Manly, Mary B.
From Rome To Cologne With La Follette Cathedral On The Rhine Chimes For "Peace On Earth'* In A Land Where There Is No Peace; Children Are Dying Of Starvation By MARY B. MANLY a FTER a wonderful...
...We were obliged to show our passports and our baggage to colored French troopers, who were a bit doubtful as to whether so large, a party should be allowed to pass, but finally let us go on...
...the home of Peter Vischer...
...Then from a tiny lake we followed another river down and watched it grow as waterfalls and rivulets added their mite...
...of the hand, is like nothing else that we saw...
...Bingen-on-the-Rhine, the Mouse Tower, the Lorelei, with its echoing rocks projecting far into the river, claimed our first attention...
...In both hospitals we were told that there was not sufficient bedding and linen to keep the beds properly clean...
...In all that building there were no children who looked as though they had ever been normal...
...Those terraces spoke eloquently of infinite patience and infinite labor...
...Its dignified simplicity gives it a feeling of worship that one does not get in the very ornate St...
...the conditions in both were almost identical, so I will describe only one...
...We came into streets that were barely wide enough to allow a cart to pass down...
...the steep hillsides w-eve terraced with rocks until they presented an appearance from the distance not unlike a mosaic...
...We added to our interest in Hans Sachs, by visiting his house, and even his little workshop where his tools are still on the bench as he left them...
...That of little children literally dying of starvation in order that the soldiers of the occupying army might have milk...
...One child of three years was pointed out who had almost the exact measurements of a child of three months, another of fourteen who had the measurements of a child of nine...
...La Follette has written of conditions there...
...Many children of three and four could not stand alone...
...It is pure Gothic in its architecture, and although begun in the Twelfth century and not completed until six hundred years later, there is no flaw in the perfect harmony of its style...
...The following day in Nuremburg is one long to be remembered...
...Nuremburg is an old Twelfth Century town, and it has preserved all of its antiquity...
...A very large number of Germans had been forced to vacate their homes in order that there should be ample space for the comfort and pleasure of the army of occupation, and these persons who were put out of their homes had to be crowded into the already overcrowded tenements...
...The Rose windows and the delicate lines of the pillars were things of beauty...
...We visited twtf large city hospitals...
...Siegert pointed out that in normal times you would find in any large children's hospital two or three of these little derelicts...
...On every mountain side, clear up to the snow line, every possible space that could nourish a root was utilized, grape vines and vegetables were everywhere...
...We were compensated, however, on the following day •when we rode through the Tyrole—for all day long we viewed snow-capped peak after peak, and exhausted all of the adjectivesoin our vocabulary, and finally could only gaze in awed wonder as we went up and up, following the river, watching it unravel little by little as small mountain streams flowed into it, and it got thinner and thinner until it was only a tiny trickle on- the mountain side, and we were on the summit of the Tyrolean Alps...
...The rooms on the top floors leaked badly, and the plaster was falling on those below...
...When the burden of caring for the Army of Occupation is added to an.already overburdened people, conditions are infinitely worse and it would seem as though it were more than humanity could endure...
...such children were in wards other than those we visited...
...Here we spent an interesting day seeing the old town, part of which had been built by the Romans, and like Nuremburg it still keeps its medieval atmosphere and appearances...
...We confined our visit to the Children's Building, which is under the direction of Dr...
...In order to be sure that we were allowed to pass the lines into the occupied territory, the Consul-General's wife came with us, as no cars other than French or diplomatic are allowed to cross, 'and the diplomatic cars mufct be occupied by someone from the Consulate...
...The babies were literally wrapped in rags, because there were no better wrappings to be had...
...We did not see one child sick «f any disease other than malnutrition...
...After three days in Cologne on the Rhine I had just two lasting impressions of that famous old city...
...One is'of the Cathedral, the third largest in the world, with its two spires reaching up into the sky, and its deep-toned bell ringing out "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men" in a land where there is no peace, and can be no good will until there is justice...
...Children Are Dying Of Starvation By MARY B. MANLY a FTER a wonderful day in the SaAbine Hills we again entrained (still five persons and fifteen pieces of baggage) for points north, and it was with real re- gret that we turned our backs upon Sunny Italy...
...Ruins of old castles whose walls seemed to echo stories of robber barons and feudal wars loomed up on every side, and, below them, peaceful villages, the homes of the people who worked in the vineyards on the steep hillsides...
...Siegert was once very wealthy, but on the day we visited him, the suit he wore had been turned in order that the best side should be out, and he himself had mended his shoes...
...In front of this church, also, one of the scenes of Goethe's "Faust" took place...
...The cathedral is a thing of wonderfully impressive beauty...
...We were told that there were only about one-half as many children there as there had been in the week previous, because the funds had been exhausted, and there was no more money to be had to keep the beds going, so the babies had to be sent home, and under the conditions in those homes they would undoubtedly die...
...From the hospitals we went to visit some of the homes of the poor, the kind of homes that sent these babies to the hospitals...
...We were again reminded of the past by a visit to the Klara-kirche, where Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet of Germany, was the Meister-singer, and here it was that two of the big scenes in Wagner's "Meistersingers" were laid...
...We left the boat at Cologne that evening, feeling that we could understand better than before why every German is ready to die if need be for the Fatherland...
...wherever it has been necessary to repair a building or build a new one it has been done in keeping with what already existed so it still appears as it did in 1200...
...In this building were rows upon rows of little beds, on each bed a tiny mite of humanity who would never have a chance to be normal, because of the French policy of exacting her pound of flesh...
...As the cart passed, pedestrians flattened themselves against the wall...
...Siegert, one of the most eminent child specialists in Germany...
...Old Five Finger street, laid out like the pain...
...The answer, in part, is that Cologne is within the occupied territory, which means that much of the food has been commandeered to feed the occupying army...
...Here we were told that they had had two children in each bed, but that £0 many had died that at the time of our visit they had only one to the bed...
...We went into dark courts and up narrow stairs that were little more than ladders;-the halls were so dark that we could only grope our way about, and they were so dark and damp that it would seem as though they had never been dry...
...Such sheets as we saw were of the coarsest material, were much darned and still showed many holes...
...Their bones seemed to be sticking through the skin—there was no flesh—abdomens horribly distended, and big eyes that seemed to ask why they were ever opened upon this troubled world...
...Just as the clock struck twelve, the seven came solemnly out and marched three times before the Emperor, Charles IV, doing homage each time they passed, and each time the Emperor dipped his sword, and we were told that in the five hundred years since these extraordinary figures were placed in the clock tower they have never failed to do their part on the stroke of twelve noon...
...The front rooms had small windows opening on the court and the back rooms had no windows at all...
...Frederick Dumont, we drove to Wiesbaden, within the occupied territory, in order to be ready to board the boat for the trip down the Rhine the following morning...
...When we were in Berlin we felt that the people, there were suffering almost to the limit of human endurance...
...One can mention only the high spots in a day like that, and in the evening we, again with deep regret, entrained for Frankfort-am-Main...
...They were not sick of any disease, they were dying of starvation...
...High food prices make it impossible for the expectant mother and nursing mother to have the proper food to give her baby a fair start, and after the period of breast feeding is over (and many mothers are unable to feed their babies at all), the problem is even more difficult as the Germans may have no milk until the demands of the occupying army are filled, and it is impossible to get substitutes...
...It is not often that one finds a church which exhibits the development of the Gothic style from its beginning to its maturity to such perfection...
...The instruments of torture, relics of the Spanish inquisition, that are kept on exhibition there made us realize the world has made some progress through the ages...
...In the afternoon, with the aid of our good Consul-General, Mr...
...No German is allowed to pass unless armed with several kinds of permits which are very hard to get...
...At Goethe's Old Home THRILLS followed upon thrill—the house where Goethe lived while he wrote his "Faust...
...Munich Is Picturesque THE next day, spent in Munich, was interesting, marked chiefly by a drive through the picturesque old town and in the wonderful park eight miles long which, since the Revolution, is the playground of the people...
...Children Are Starving THE other impression is a sad one...
...Hospital Babies in Rags WE thought this hospital might have the extra bad eases, so we visited another large hospital and found the conditions there as bad or even worse...
...It Was here that we found the famous Sakramentschauchn by Adam Kraft, resting on the figures of the Master and His two assistants...
...Even in those discouraging surroundings the women were struggling bravely to»keep things elean and to maintain their old standards of living...
...This hospital, one of the finest in Germany, was built twelve years ago and contains one thousand more beds than Bellevue, the largest hospital in the United States...
...Bingen-on-the-Rhine THEN followed another memorable day...
...We finished the day with a visit to the Castle up on a hill towering over the city...
...Not one child there anywhere nearly approached normal measurements...
...Here and there were important cities such as Coblenz and Bonn, and even from the boat we could get some idea of their beauty...
...here they were all in that condition...
...This was the first church in Germany to become Lutheran, and Martin Luther spoke to the people from that rostrum...
...At exactly noon we stopped at the market place in front of the Frauenkirche, which was built in 1355...
...Inside we found usually two rooms to the family of five, six, or seven...
...What will the end be...
...Once we heard a wail of despair, when a woman mistaking us for representatives of the building commission, which had promised to mend her leaking roof, said, "My little girl has died, so it doesn't matter now if you fix the roof or not...
...Peter's of Rome...
...Not that the mountains were grand or more impressive than parts of our own mighty Rockies, but they held greater interest because of the cultivation on them...
...When one thinks of the soft warm wrappings we provide for our babies, it is almost impossible to visualize without seeing the condition of those little unfortunates...
...We were told that Cologne was much better off than other towns in the occupied territory, as Cologne was occupied by the British, and that the British were much more considerate of the native population than the French and Belgians, and that, bad as it was, it was not so bad as having the colored troops quartered there, as in the cases of the towns occupied by the French...
...Every turn of the winding river from Wiesbaden to Cologne brought up old historic and fabled memories...
...Our first visit was to the Lorenzkirche, built in 1439...
...Better Than Other Cities IF the family was small, some outsiders were quartered there, as only so much space per person was allowed...
...The question naturally arises, "Why...
...The eld meat market which has been in the same family'for 400 years was near by...
...statue of Albrecht Drurer, and the home of the Tucher family followed in rapid succession...
Vol. 16 • January 1924 • No. 1
