French Not as Friendly As In 1918
By Frank Miles
Paris (IDPA) -- French people on the whole do not seem to be be nearly so friendly to Americans as they were after World War I. Some frankly say that they were well treated by occupying Germans from 1940-1944.
Prices in all legitimate markets in Paris are high. The French figure a franc worth about half a cent. Under the rate of exchange set by our government, a franc is valued at two cents.
There are no motor taxis here but a horse drawn cab may be engaged for what in American money would be more than a whole outing was worth in Iowa.
Most of the French from whom I had tried to buy had both hands out for all they could possibly get.
"The French think every American is fabulously rich," says a Virginia native, who has practiced law here many years after serving in the U.S. Army in World War I. "It's partly the Americans fault because so many of us like to splurge when we have a roll."
Marcel Talcott, Waukegan, Ill., national American Legion graves registration chairman, said he had learned the Germans blew up the American memorial at Brest, knocked down stars over Jewish graves in cemeteries, the St. Mihiel memorial was badly damaged by shells, a piece of shrapnel pierced a window of the chapel of the Meuse-Argonne cemetery at Romagne and there was vandalism in the hostess house there. He said that on the whole damage to American cemeteries and other installations for American dead in Europe was slight.
Source: Mount Pleasant News, July 17, 1945
