Show SLOW TO CHANGE CHANG E NAMES OF CITIES americans not prone to malke make alterations since the nonstop aviators from this country landed by the golden horn it lias has dawned on most of us for the first time thai the turks have hava been Elia changing nging the name of their great metropolis we may have heard of stamboul but never dreamed we would have t to 0 say istanbul we learned of if it ns as constantinople stantin ople the name the romans gave to what tile the greeks called byzantium zanti um and in our secret thoughts it probably always will be constantinople ti after the fall of the russian monarchy st petersburg became petro grad only to be later as leningrad all of which was to be expected from froin the mania of 0 the bolsheviks for uprooting everything connected with the old regime then the norwegians Norwegia ns changed the name of to oslo that of the old national capital across the bay china followed the fashion and ancl when the capital of the republic was transferred to Nan hing peking became Pei neiping ping in spite of our reputation for change the united halted states has displayed a surprising permanence in this respect our urban nomenclature derived not only from the english lish the french the spanish and the indians but irom from the classics classic and any kotlier stray bools books that might have been read by our more lettered city founders has persisted with little modification som ahmea tile the names were were of pronoun elation or calculated I 1 abed to inspire levity but abut the original christening lias has generally held we might have re named new orleans for thomas jefferson pr st augustine for ali andrew agthe english altered the name of nw ne amsterdam to new york when they drove out tile the dutch during the war we even resisted the patriotic pressure to capital of north dakota a name less im suggestive ot of though we yielded on the point of sauerkraut lit at least for the duration of hostilities but bismarck remained bismarck and sauerkraut again became sauerkraut after it a spell its as liberty cabbage however it may satisfy the ex Igen cles of nationalism or local politics we hope for the sake of our hard learned store of geographical knowledge that other countries too will leave their city names as they are new york herald tribune |