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Show U. S. TO PAY $2,000,000 DAMAGES TO FRANCE XEW YORK, Aug.'P. Damage claims to France for damages to property or injuries , to civilians bv the American army will not exceed $2,000,000 or about $1 a man for nil' the-soldiers in tho American expeditionary force,. . according ac-cording to an estimate made by Lieutenant Lieu-tenant Colonel Robert E. Burkham of St. Louis, chief claims officer, who recently re-cently returned from abroad. This sum represents 50,000 separate claims ranging rang-ing from broken windows, to a charge of 3,000,000 francs for destruction of forests and forest lands through American Amer-ican artillery practice at Sougo, near Bordeaux. , , "Settlement of these claims." said Colonel Burkham, "was delicate. Here were American officers deciding cases with a French' claimant on the one side and the American government on the other. 'A square deal ' was absolutely required and tho decisions, I am confident, confi-dent, were most fair and in keeping with traditional American standards of sportsmanship and fair play. " Averse criticism of the French civilian ci-vilian population was deprecated by Colonel Burkham, who said that such criticism came from those soldiers who were the shortest time in France. |