Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 1914)
9 TTTE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX. PORTTjAXD", STTPTTrn'FTt 27, 1914, I I - is-'iM-. iff ? ' 4 TEBUNGllEIUGterrE OPEXPEPlENGEcLnOP EFUCEEe INNEUTBAL Switzerland L W 1 I f iff .MlTl'Saw v' ! 0 I f.l i I ,i r.tA. n v i ii ii iT x w i ,r is& j "sr V. " f':- ft? TO BY STERLING HEILla. LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Sept. 15. (Special Correspondence.) "At noon today Signor Vanderbilt and 400 rich Americans sailed for New York from Genoa on the Principe di Udine. chartered by Signor Vanderbilt from the Italian Lloyd, but still flying the Italian flag-." So ran the news in the Milan "Cor rlere della Sera," copied by Swiss pa pers and read by thousands of Ameri cans who remain stranded and without funds to pay hotel bills, steamship passage or even railroad tickets to an other city. They have not cash to -cable home for money; nor is money being sent by cable. "Such is the situation today," says William Morton Payne, of Chicago, ed itor of "The Dial." By the time you can read these lines (September 27) he says that "the great mass of Amer icans In Central Europe will not yet have been rescued; nor will they be within sight of rescue until sufficient American gold can be actually arrived in Europe for the purpose. European KOld has simply disappeared. The ca bling of 'credits' is Insufficient." Professor B. F. Woodward, formerly of Columbia University and assistant commissioner-general for the United States at the Paris Exposition of 1900, nays that another Italian ship sails from Naples soon and that 2000 Amer icans In Geneva. Switzerland, have or dered passage on her. "Why, there are 2S00 Americans in Genoa and 1500 in Naples who can't get shipping or money to pay their accumulated hotel bills. Ambassador Page sends word from Rome that the next eeven Italian vessels sailing are already engaged, chuck-full. He adds that there are 9000 Americans actually In Italy, and more coming. Embassy and private firms are trying to charter vessels, but there are none. Money, i. e.. gold, is needed in great quantity to pay hotel bills." . ' s r k2j r::- k lib A " Hi's v. ftzi f vi vtv'.i t- N r-f v'v-' fV I E V.f " fs? ejf Ccji J SG.e A r7 j Wert e rcy y-cj TJ-,ool-t- As to Switzerland positively con gested with our refugees the 230 Americans who left Interlaken by a special train for Genoa the other day are considered ill-advised. The Amer ican advice committee of Vevey-Lau-sanne, with 915 Americans on its list, advises us all to sit tight and wait. Bemsen Whltehouse, long of the United States diplomatic service, dis tinguished historian and the richest American resident of Lausanne, is chairman, and Dr. Thomas Linn, of , Nice, is secretary, nominated by Ven erable WlLMam E. Nlea, archdeacon of the American Episcopal churches of Europe. Keeping in touch with the United States Minister and the various Consuls, the advice committee freely and painstakingly gives out a hundred times a day advice. Every steamer calling from no matter what port, every dollar visible In no matter what bank. It has an eye on all. "There are 200,000 Americans in Eu rope," says the archdeacon. "Imagine 1000 per ship, and 200 ships will be required to send them home. They are not only the 19J4 tourist crop, but students, artists, Invalids, parents edu cating their young children, foreign residents. The first two French ships out. the Franca and the Chicago, car ried 2000. The Cunard and White Star lines announce weekly sailings; and there are the Italian boats every 10 days. You see. Does your Swiss hotel-keeper give you credit? Splendid! Perfect! Sit tight. Wash your socks, handkerchiefs and underwear In your bedroom. Wear shirts two days. Stop smoking. And wait for the United States warship Tennessee." Genial archdeacon! How many dead broke mammas, how many trembling, old ladles has he not cheered with the Tennessee, actually crossing the At lantic with $2,600,000 In gold voted by Congress for the relief of Americans? If there are 200,000 of us, it will be $12 a piece. Tet there are hundreds and hundreds who can never pay their board bills which the splendid Swiss hotelmen have so freely trusted them unless relief comes. Forced to over stay their time, they have forfeited their return tickets and their bills are running up because they cannot get away. . "The great mass are far from being rich expatriates," says Professor Os good, of Harvard. "And the proof of it is that more than half, in Geneva, Vevey and Lausanne, have applied to the committee for second-elass passage home." Professor Osgood showed rne a paper. He was hunting $20 for a lady. "It is a well-known form of travel ers' check," he said. "The lady asked me to collect It for her, and left her name blank. The Lausanne banker told me to fill it in. When I had done so he objected to the discrepancy of hand writings; the lady must write her name. And when she had done it, he refused to pay because the name was written twice. She is a dear old Amer ican lady, all alone at our hotel. I dare not go back to her without the $20. She is all of a-tremble." Imagine the distinguished and wealthy Harvard professor running about Lausanne in vain to find $20. He finally found It In his own pocket. And it was half his available fortune,' $40 worth of travelers' checks, the weekly limit which the Lausanne banks are paying out. We must not criticise the Swiss banks for advertising (as a few. are beginning to do) that they will "advance money for moderate -weekly expenses" on "approved letters of credit." One day last week the great Federal Bank here had only $200 in cash to open its doors with. There has been a craze among the European natives to draw out and hoard. Paper money can be Issued only against gold to secure it. And there is no gold. It is folly to talk of '"ca bling credits." America must send gold, gold, gold, and more gold! Even American and other foreign banknotes have lost their purcahslng power. Advertisements Ilka the fol lowing are seen constantly: "Edmond Chauvannes, banker, buys gold of all countries and, in moderate sums. French banknotes, American greenbacks and English . banknotes. For more important sums he accepts them on deposit and pays out Swiss banknotes up to $100 per week." I saw an Englishman sell a' 5-pound note for $20 and an American sell a $20 gold certificate for $15. So. in the cities, where you may arrive at a bank with your good American, French or English money and find that the bank has no more Swiss cash to buy with. A man may have his pockets full and not be able to buy an apple until he can make a dicker tomorrow, if he gets up early. In the mountain resorts, iso lated, ignorant, without facilities, it is infinitely worse. At Engelberg, above Lucerne, an American lady gave her pearl necklace for a family board bill and $30 railroad fare. The 24 naval officers arriving with Mr. Brecken ridge on the Tennessee ought to scour the mountain resorts for Americans eating the bread of afflllctlon in hotels where they owe so much, yet cannot get away. An American who has done great good is E. P. Frazer, consular agent at Vevey. There la no getting out of Switzerland without money and pass ports. Passports have become utterly essential. With passports (and money) one can move on into France or Italy. They are worthless for Ger manyeven to get out. and pitiful ap peals come from Americans in Munich, who dare not venture into the street. Four entire days the American com mittee rounded up the 915 Americans who now have their emergency pass ports in Lausanne, and Mr. Frazer and his capable wife come up from Vevey four times to a Lausanne garden to in- teroogate them personally and deal out the precious papers ... gratis! Not a cent of consular costs. "No fee." The British pay $1.60, and I know two tearful old maids who had to borrow it. The French vise costs $2 and the Russians pay $4. I was proud of America. They were golden afternoons, as hot as Lausanne can be in the dog days, crowds and crowds of worried Amer icans, all joyful to meet each other in that Lausanne garden. Gone all that American suspicion and hauteur. Fear made the "humblest dear. Equally with out money, proud and meek clasped hands. The Consul sat at his desk and Bweated. Everybody filled up blanks and sweated. Nobody took a drink drinks cost 10. cents. I found in those delightful crowds recently the following residents of Portland: Mrs. C. A. Douglas, Walter George Crowe. Herbert Q. Adams and adopted niece. Miss Marjorie Lynn, Miss Harriet Lynn, Elmen P. Whack, Mrs. Lucius May and maid and two children. These citizens are safe. All have passports, hotels and pensions in Lau sanne that give them credit and they remain in touch with the Lausanne, Geneva and Vevey committees. But every day there drift into these cities the most pitiable cases, destitute, with out their baggage, without a change of linen, without a friend but the ad vice committees. At the Hotel Beau-Sejour, of Lau sanne, the more well-to-do Americans have constituted themselves a loose and secret committee of rescue. On their indication Monsieur Pasche, the staunch and open-handed proprietor, is accepting rumpled and discouraged Americans who arrive without a cent and don't know whether or when or for what weekly sums their particular letters of credit will be "approved" by the local banks. Too great credit cannot be given to these Lausanne hotel proprietors. We hear cruel stories of raised prices and Jewelry claimed as security from Italy, and there may have been panic and doubt among the remoter mountain re sorts of Switzerland. Even Geneva may have boosted her prices gently for newcomers; - but Lausanne and Vevey and Switzerland in general have aston ished, comforted and enthused us by their confidence, liberality and Chris tian charity. There are abominable cases. An American lady and her beautiful ath letic 18-year-old daughter were seek ing refuge in Switzerland across a frontier not the French one. The mother, sick and fainting with priva tions, was almost carried by the cour ageous young girl; and because the latter was so straight and strong, the brutes pretended to imagine her a man In disguise, pulling her hair, investi gating her corsage and submitting her to Indignities. Two ladies (one of whom la down with brain fever at the Beau-Sejour were up three nights in succession crossing from Germany, had scarcely any food and were terrorised for speak ing English. They actually hired a baby carriage and took turns wheeling their valises from the German frontier station toward the Swiss and were arrested as "suspicious" when actually in sight of safety. The baby carriage was the suspicious object, and that last night in the police post gave the cere bral congestion to the elder lady. It is a pandemonium today in Eu rope, and tomorrow everyone is going to be hungry. Every American wants to go home. It is abominable that women, any how, should be forced to cringe for credit and see money doled out to them in driblets, without any certitude of the morrow. How can w pay out bank bills? With big battles the finan cial panics will begin again. Only gold is any good. Cabled "credits" are worthless. Europe has not enough money for herself. It costs $45,000,000 per day to run these wars. If they issue paper money without gold to back it, credit goes down in a whirl. They know It. Europe is no place for us today. Frogs and Toads. In olden times toads and frogs were part of the outfits of doctors, who used them to heal almost everything. In Sir Walter Raleigh's time at cer tain stages of the moon a salve made of toads' fat was used by athletic men. It is thought that the animal's power of Jumping would, in this way, be rubbed into the limbs of men. In New England people think that if a person handles a toad he will have his fingers poisoned. It is thought that the practice of eating frogs dates from the end of the 16th century. Then the fasting or non-flesh-eating monks ate the frogs to get something as near like flesh as possible. Frogs serve as good barometers. If you put a small one In a glass jar where a plant is growing, he will hide in the grass when it is damp, but when there is a chance of better weather will climb op on a little perch, if one is furnished him. Star of the Stationer. A stationer is one who sells writing materials and stationery designated writing paper. Originally there were two classes of merchants who dealt in writing materials and in books. There were those who peddled their wares from carts and those who had permanent shops. These latter dealers were able to keep larger stocks and more generally handled paper 'and ink in addition to books. Because their shops were stationary they came to be known as stationers, and the materials which they handled were called sta tionery. The American Boy.
