UNIVERSITY ARCHITECT REBUILT FRENCH TOWN

Professor Jean Jacques Haffner, who has been associated with the School of Architecture for the past two years, has learned that the reconstruction of the city of Albert in the Department of the Somme, France, which he planned before leaving France has been practically completed after a delay of over two years. Professor Haffner became Architect of the city early in 1921 and drew up plans for its rearrangement and for schools and the city hall.

Albert was one of the many cities that were totally demolished by the Germans during the World War, but it was unable to begin reconstruction until several years after the war had ended because of the lack of funds that should have come as reparations from the Germans. Last summer, however, work on the buildings was begun in earnest and the new plans for the layout of the city were put into practice. Professor Haffner went to France last June and directed the work of reconstruction himself.

City's Population Previously Was 9000

The city, before the war had a population of about 9,000 and was a place of pilgrimmage to which a great many people came each year to worship. Now the town has depleted to half its former size. The reconstructed village is in contrast to the old, very modern with a civic center and markets, post office and official buildings in designated places with several playgrounds in reserved open spaces. The factory and residential sections have been kept in special separated sections of the city.

Factories are beginning to work and are striving to make-up for the gap of years of little or no production. The schools, which are now in small crude huts will move within a few weeks into the newly constructed schoolhouses. The cathedral alone has not been rebuilt and the services of the church are still held in temporary improvised buildings.

Germans Will Never pay France

"The Germans will never pay France for what they have done unless a tighter hold than that at present, is kept on them," Professor Haffner said, when asked if he thought that the Germans had learned their lesson by the temporary loss of the Ruhr territory and would make an effort to pay their debt. "And we shall keep that hold on them if we are not hindered by our interested allies. The occupation of the Ruhr was undoubtedly successful by showing that passive resistance of Germany was a failure. France wants money and it is hardly fair to make the very people who have rebuilt the country pay for the good they have done through heavy taxes, while the destroyers are paying fewer taxes and are even enlarging their industries.

"You speak of the German colonies as a source of reparations but they are benefiting England, not France. Our Allies are helping reestablish ourselves, but only by consulting without producing the promised money, so France could hardly be expected to do anything else, other than break away and act by itself. This does not mean that France is reactionary, and is anxious to acquire the Rhineland; it means only that she is intent upon seeing the treaties fulfilled and then will withdraw satisfied.

"America misunderstands France's actions as France equally fails to understand this country. The newspapers of the countries are the misleading factors and the people fail to realize how little truth they know about the other nation."