Show slow TO CHANGE NAMES OF CITIES CITIE S americans not prone to make alterations since the nonstop aviators from this country landed by tile the golden horn it lias has dawned on most of its for the first it time le that the turks have been changing the tie naine of their areat metropolis we way may have heard of stamboul but never dreamed we would have to say buy istanbul we learne of if it a as con tile name the gave to what the greel greeks s called byzantium zanti zant lum um and in III our secret th oil gilts it probably always will be C constantinople ti after the hie fall of tho the Ilus sian mon archy st petersburg became petro grail grad only to be 1 later ater us its leningrad all of which was to bo be expected ex from the manin mania of the bolsheviks for uprooting everything connected with the old regime then the norwegians Norwegia ns changed the name of to oslo that of tile the old national capital across the day bay china followed the fashion annl when the capital of the republic was transferred to poking became helping Pel ping in spite of our reputation for change the united states has displayed a permanence in tills this respect our urban nomenclature derived not only from the english the french the spanish and the indians but from the lie cla classics s and any other stray books that might have been read by our more lettered city founders lias has persisted with little modification sometimes the names were of pronoun elation or calculated to inspire levity but tile the original has generally held we might have renamed now kew orleans tor for thomas jefferson or st augustine for andrew jackson as the english altered the name of new amsterdam to new york when they drove out the dutch during the war we even resisted the patriotic pressure to give the capital of north dakota a name less sug cestive of C though we yielded on oil the lie polut point of sauerkraut lit at least for the duration of hostilities hut but bismarck remained bismarck and raut again became sauer araut after it spell ns its liberty cabbage I 1 however it may satisfy the exigencies igen cies of nationalism or local poll politics we ive hope for tho the sake of 0 our hardle liard learned arneti store oe of geographical h knowledge that other countries too will leave their city names its as they are new york herald tribune |