Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 200, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1918 — WAR HITS A BEAUTY SPOT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WAR HITS A BEAUTY SPOT

(JBan Diego, Where It’s Always Fair Weather, Scene of Military Activity of Many Varieties

*IHEN war bifbke out. Uncle WSam bore down upon seagirt San Diego, Cal., and said: . 1 “Wake up, sleeping beauty! 11l You’re conscripted. I want , . your clear blue skies for my aviators, your ocean-going mesa for a khaki city, and your deep, land-locked harbor for submarines, radio stations, marine bases, great battle ships, and all sorts of exciting things.” “All right, uncle,” replied San Diego, dropping its dolce far nlente for working overalls. “You bet!” “And concrete ships,” suggested Uncle Sam as an afterthought. “I want you to build shoals of them.” Again San Diego was enthusiastic; and thus by an odd trick of these war times, the most peaceful, dreamy city in America has , become a military pageant. Before the war San Diego was renowned for Its perpetual cool, fair, sunny weather; for desert, seascapes and flowers; for old Spanish architecture, artistic atmosphere, and romantic traditions. It was a haven for seekers of rest, joy, and play. Today It stands at attention in olive drab. Its population has been doubled by uniformed men and it has more war activities than any city of its size in the country. A Mixture of Races. Its wave-lulled quiet is broken by the rhythm of marching feet, the music of military bands, the clatter of hoofs and the aerial chug-chug of motors. A $10,000,000 ship building plant will soon bring smokestacks and thousands of workmen to the poets’ city. Up and down palm lined, geranium bordered avenues go French officers in horizon blue; an occasional Briton or Canadian; daredevil aces with silver wings and adventurous weather-beaten faces; Mexican vaqueros turned cavalrymen; haughty Navajos, Plmas and Hopl who have swapped gorgeous blankets and ancient desert pueblos for drab uniforms and army tents; ex-cowpunchers trying to feel natural in navy middies and jaunty caps; and soldiers and sailors drawn from one-fifth the area of the United States. Camouflaged ships slip often Into the azure harbor and sail away under convoy, carrying thousands of hard-muscled young warriors to the battle line In France. To the government coaling station, come strange vessels flying foreign flags. Sometimes- a Japanese ship drops anchor and groups of polite little brown men go sightseeing through the streets* Into the quietest life the thrill of war has come. The housewife, washing the breakfast dishes, hears hoofbeats and .rushes to the porch. A scout rides by. He hitches his horse at the edge of the canyon and reconnoiters for Imaginary Huns. Happily he finds only quail and meadowlarks, and soon the whole cavalry troop comes galloping —-tall, lean, rangy riders, as brown as their own khaki.

One wonders if the kaiser’s Uhlans are so much a part of horse and saddle. Many of the horsemen are from the Frederick Remington country and have shot wolves and coyotes, rounded up cattle Thieves and ridden .days through sand and cactus with alkali dust clinging to their eyelashes. The sun shines on the satiny backs of their mounts. Two or three wave gayly at Mrs. Housewife on the porch. She returns the salute with a comradely flourish of the tea towel, and, in a flurry of dust, they are gone. Aircraft in the Sky. Time was when San Diegans got a thrill from waiting two or three hours at an aviation meet, finally to be told by a fat gentleman with a megaphone that, as the wind was strong, the exhibition would be postponed. Later, when two ©r three lonely airships began circling overhead, the population elevated their noses and craned their necks in admiration. The first graduating class of eight from Rockwell field was hailed, by the newspapers as a great event. Today, with 20 airships in the sky at once, and with thousands of birdmen training at North Island, the civilians are blase. However, the chutter of an engine brings Mrs. Housewife out of doors to look. It

may be Mike Brown, super-ace of North Island, or some space-defying Frenchman borrowed from the fighting line to teach battle acrobatics. In such a case numbers of dinners will wait while the aviator climbs the air in leaps and bounds as though vaunting up a gigantic aerial staircase. When he is a little moth against a mountainous cumutous cloud 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the earth, the chugging of the motor stops and the birdship coasts in a long, swooping dive growing larger every -minute, until it rights-Mteelf and the engine begins to turn again. He climbs again toward the zenith, flies on his back, rocks from side to side, loops the loop, performs side spins and tall spins, the zigzagging "falling leaf,” and the Immellman turn, most swift of air movements. Not until the warbird. has flown off to lunch does Mrs. Housewife remember her fireless cooker. Peace for the Oregon. From an excursion steamer one looks aloft to a sky whirring with airplanes. One counts a dozen, a.score; but It Is Impossible to keep track, for machines, piloted by students and Instructors, are constantly alighting and ascending. A sight of thrilling loveliness it is—purple-blue water below, stretching to the end of the world where almond-eyed Japanese kiddies are playing in the surf; above, the translucent blue of skies like those of France and Italy; against it the blue white planes, dipping, racing, sailing, as gracefully as the gulls. Some are 7,000 feet up, specks against pasteltinted Mexican mountains. Others fly lower, their engines scolding ferociously, as they breeze along at more than a hundred miles an hour. Their shadows flit across picturesque Japanese fishing craft; pleasure boats and submarine destroyers, and battleship Oregon, which, after the daredeviltry of Its youth. Is spending a safety-first respectable old age as a naval training ship.

With the speeding up of the war effort, flying is done seven days a week. Sabbath afternoons are enlivened by squads of machines practicing battle formations, flying in wedges like wild geese, or In single file, or circling around each other, at the signal of the leader, in queer Virginia reels of the air. Thousands of feet above earth they suggest the dizzy dance of Insects around a lamp. £-

The boys who are starting to the \var from San Diego are in luck as to climate—and fun! After duty is over there is always play. The country is a perpetual invitation. It is rimmed about by sapphire seas, which splash in lacy breakers around cliffs, grottoes and glistening white beaches. Tn the background, mountains of pale blue, violet and rose appear and vanish through hazes and vapors. Between mountains and the sea, palms wave, the desert stretches Its mile on mile of mystery, and oranges and lemons bloom 'from Christmas eve to Christmas eve. Movie Stars Are There. From the studios at Los Angeles movie stars debouch on the city. Hardly a day passes when Theda Bara, Clara Kimball Young, Mary Pickford, Mary Miles Minter, Doug Fairbanks, or other lights of the screen don’t “appear in person” to godmother or godfather an orphan regiment. Many a bashful rookie whose life has been spent in mountain solitude remote from feminine fluffiness has talked face to face with the movie star of his dreams. San Diego’s own Schumarin Heink sings often. Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn entertain, and many novelists, magazine writers and artists who have emigrated to California join forces with the Y. M. C. A. to give the soldiers a good time. Soldiers on hike may eat their noonday meal by the sea, on a mountain side, in an olive grove, or by the ruins of an old mission. Often regiments are invited to Point Loma, a white city overlooking the sea where 500 theosophlsts make their home. Here are avenues of palms, the Tosepurple domes of temples, exotic trees, and a Greek theater, where the Raja Yoga girls in. Greek robes garlanded with flowers sing choruses, or a dramatic class presents a Shakespearean play to a regiment resting from a hike. Every afternoon at Balboa Park the navy boys may listen to an open-air pipe organ recital, if they prefer it to swimming, boating or loitering in Japanese' gardens, pepper groves or rose-hung arbors. On the plaza around which is the regal group of palaces where the navy troys are billeted, a dance is given every Saturday night, with the stars overhead, Moorish towers looming up mistily in the background, and glimpses of moonlit sea shimmering between Greek pillars. It seems an ideal life. And .yet, when a streaked apd dotted paintsplashed transport sneaks Into the harbor and weighs anchor a few hours while it takes on a precious cargo of American youths, the only sober faces one sees are of the boy# who will be left behind.