Show I L F Frances France's S Herculean Task TaskA I IA A L THOUGH reports show that the indomitable French people A ALTHOUGH are persistently engaged in the work of restoration and reconstruction recon recon- fion in the devast devastated ted area of the country it is certain that years must pass before the sedi section n occupied for several years by byi bythe bythe i the invaders from Germany assumes even a semblance of what it t was wa previous to the outbreak k of the war That Frances France's task is a herculean one is in indexed ed d by the fact that th t an area of f inore more than square miles was filled with utter desolation d One thousand cities towns and villages were wiped out of existence e while fertile fields were transformed into a chaotic condition comparable to refuse dumps that are eyesores in the but outskirts i ts s of practically every city The case of St St. Quentin is typical of the methods of warfare conducted ted by the invading hordes After of the inhabitants had had been deported to Germany the city was systematically looted and nd then destroyed Even the tombs were opened and the bodies stripped of jewelry Even public records of births marriages and deaths and records of probate r bate were destroyed The pumps at the waterworks w were re wrecked beyond repair and when the invaders were wee retiring before the onslaughts of the allied forces the Germans placed a bomb in every building in the city and th thus s completed th their r work of devastation That the great industries of the region suffered in like proportion proportion proportion tion i is shown by an official report given out in Berlin that it would require requite the services of all the unemployed workmen ain in Germany for or eight years to restore the coal mines of northern France to their condition o n of productiveness in prewar days It is but natural that the sympathies and also any possible financial financial aid of Americans should be extended to the people of France whose sufferings were not the result of any act of of their own |