Show important commercial centers destroyed beyond repair PEOPLE ARE LEFT HOMELESS country should be forced to pay for ruthless destruction as far as within the power of its people by A PATTERSON in august 1914 the city of lens in northern france was a prosperous community of close to 50 people it was known as the pittsburgh of france and its coal fields were the one great source of supply of luel for the nation its steel and iron mills supplied much of the material tor french railroads shipbuilding and other industries its people industrious dust rious and thrifty living in comfortable for table homes surrounded by the modest luxuries of an industrial community all that 13 left of lens today Is a crumbling pile of debris no single wall of he city ll 11 still standing and hardly a piece of a wall as much as ten feet square can be seen amid the terrible ruins both the buildings and the machinery of its factories are gone completely its coal mines are flooded and the machinery with which they were operated has been destroyed and all this because germany started a war for the purpose of conquest a war in which no principle other than that of selfishness was involved today germany Is a crushed nation her plans for world domination miscarried her armies have been defeated but before these things happened the city of lens had been destroyed I 1 stood amid the ruins of what had once been the attractive and prosperous industrial community of lens and watched hundreds of her people who had resumed after the germans and been driven back as they searched for the spots on which their homes had once stood as they dug into the debris in an effort to rescue from it some one thing some memento of that home they had loved as much or even more than we americans love our homes I 1 saw the tears on the cheeks of many as they toiled I 1 saw an old woman carrying an ay as the only thing she find a piece of a broken chair and I 1 thought who shall pay for this devastation this misery there Is but one answer are the broken homeless people of lens to pay are the people of france to are the people 0 england or america or belgium to pay or are the germans to pay to be sure the city of lens was destroyed by shells fired largely from british guns but they were fired into the city because the invading germans in the city roust be driven out that not only france but the world might be freed of the menace of german domination and the debris that once was lens stands tod y a striking monument to german greed and to the accuracy and efficiency of british artillery could the people of america have seen the people searching those ruins as I 1 saw them could they have seen the ears as I 1 saw them they would have said as I 1 said germany must pay and she must continue to pay until this fair city and many many others like it have been restored until these people and their descendants are again the happy prosperous contented people they were before the hell of german wantonness and selfishness was let loose in 1914 what happened in lens has happened in many other cities and towns in france in belgium in italy in serbia in roumania Rou manla in poland and for all of them germany and her al lies pay and pay and pay cruel fate of cypres ypres another example of the hellishness of athla german war pt conquest Is seen in what was once the beautiful and historic city of cypres ypres in belgium this town Is today but one mass of ruins its wonderful cloth hall and st martins church both considered among the marvels of europe and both dating back to the thirteenth century anre gone never to be restored there Is no way by which the germans can five back world these beaucl of past centuries but SA a afi ay they can be made to pay for them so far as dollars can pay and with the passing of this city there passed away many thousand lives of british soldiers who today lie burled around the place they so bravely defended one possibly better jre allees here the terrors of this war than at any other one spot here the germans held the hills to the east of the julty and the british defenders occupied the low lying fields between the halls and the city for them or deep trenches were out of the question as the land Is but little above sea level and here in what Is almost a marsh the british commies tommies lay month after month through winter and summer a fair target for the boche guns on the nearby hills when I 1 was in cypres ypres late in october many of the people to whom it had been home were there digging hopelessly in the rubbish in a vain effort to find some small thing that could be associated with the homes that the germans had destroyed in their effort to secure orid domination by a war of conquest city of walla only the city of menan in belgium was not shelled by either army and yet it Is a city that germany should pay for the walls of menan are standing but it Is a city of walls only the floors the roofs the foists joists the doors and windows and the door and window casings are gone all torn out by the invading boche with the result that the people of menan are as homeless as the people of lens and cypres ypres and hundreds of other cities and towns in the invaded countries I 1 rode through devastated armen la bassee deual cambria peronne albert arras st quentan ln guiscard Gul boyon noyon chauny aucourt and hundreds of smaller towns and the story of devastation nas always the same with but little variation devastation caused by the boche and for which the boche should pay and for which the price assessed will never be high enough in many ways the of the boche has been demonstrated the city of arras has not suffered such complete destruction as has fallen upon many other cities here the ger man gunners centered their fire upon the cathedral and day after day week after week and month after month they continued to pour a eatn of metal upon this beautiful old church until today it Is nothing but a mass of powdered stone germany cannot give back that cathedral of arras but she can pay and should pay for the need less senseless destruction and the fair cities and towns that have been so ruthlessly destroyed are but incidents in the devastation caused by this war and for all of which germany and her allies and they alone are responsible and for all of which they should pay |