Don Martin diary entry for Wednesday, January 30, 1918:
Went to office at noon and read papers. Then to hotel and wrote two long stories about air reprisals, and the threatened German attack on Western front. Had dinner at Simpson’s. Then Skipper Williams of the Times, N.Y. called and took me to the Apollo Theatre to see “Inside the Lines,” a stupid play – a travesty on Americans. To see the English burlesque Americans seems so foolish, because the English are a joke. One American is worth a dozen Englishmen at anything. Went to office in a taxi for a few minutes. Then sat around lobby with Charlie Wheeler till 1 a.m. Air raid threatened again but no warning given. Report Germans were driven back.
Went to office at noon and read papers. Then to hotel and wrote two long stories about air reprisals, and the threatened German attack on Western front. Had dinner at Simpson’s. Then Skipper Williams of the Times, N.Y. called and took me to the Apollo Theatre to see “Inside the Lines,” a stupid play – a travesty on Americans. To see the English burlesque Americans seems so foolish, because the English are a joke. One American is worth a dozen Englishmen at anything. Went to office in a taxi for a few minutes. Then sat around lobby with Charlie Wheeler till 1 a.m. Air raid threatened again but no warning given. Report Germans were driven back.
Weather foggy but clear later in day
Don Martin posted to New York a number of articles dated January 30. The February 17 Sunday edition of the New York Herald again dedicated a whole page in Part Three of Section 1 with the banner headline “SPECIAL ARTICLES ON THE WAR WRITTEN FOR THE HERALD”, which included four of these articles by Don Martin. The main article gave a full account of the serious submarine warfare situation.
SUBMARINE MENACE STILL SERIOUS, BUT BRITISH SAY WORST IS OVER, THOUGH HUNS HAVE BIGGER BOATS
Crisis Believed to be Passed, but More Fighting Ships Needed
FIVE LARGE U-BOATS COULD STAND BATTLE
American Seamen on Board New Destroyers Are Gradually Reducing the Undersea Pirates
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Jan. 30.
If some one can devise a way to make shipping absolutely safe from submarine attack he will have blazed the way to a speedy victory for the Allies. If the Allies can make shipping reasonably secure against the hidden attacks of the sea pests or can prevent the submersibles from increasing their toll from the merchant marine they will have greatly hastened the day when peace will reign throughout the world.
With the U-boat menace crushed or effectively curbed there would be no cause for worry as to victory on land. That would be a question only of patience and the inevitable triumph of superior forces.
The Herald is able to say authoritatively this:--
The submarine situation is still a serious one and has not been overcome, but the allied masters of the sea are practically convinced that the menace can get no worse than it had been at times during the last year.
If it gets no worse the Allies will be able to transport troops whenever necessary and to supply both the army and civil populations of all the allied countries. A complete inventory has been made of the ships now afloat and the vessels to be available between now and next autumn, and the allies know exactly where they stand. They have not as many ships as they wish or could use and the supply will continue to shorten during the entire summer, but the crisis has been passed.
Optimism Growing
I have talked with the men whose business it is to know just what vessels are sunk and how many submarines are sent to the bottom of the sea. They by no means make light of the situation, but there is no gainsaying that they feel much more optimistic—or it might be said less downhearted—than they were last spring and during the early summer months.
To me each one of them said:--
“We hope American will hurry its new destroyers. We need them. We need all we can get. We are eagerly awaiting every one that comes.”
England—and American too—knows that Germany has made amazing progress in the development of the submarine since the war began. The undersea boat which prowls in the Channel and North Sea to-day might be almost called a floating palace compared with the U-53, which is the autumn of 1916 entertained American society at Newport and then went out and destroyed six ships in an afternoon off Nantucket.
A shipping man said to me recently:--
“The latest German submarines by comparison are like the Lusitania compared with the old Campania, and every ocean traveller remembers them both.”
How many of the big submarines Germany has at sea or ready to poke their noses under the Channel lights England can only guess. News from the Central Empires is hard to get. The censorship is far more drastic than anything England knows, and even here the supervision is more rigid than America has or perhaps than America would accept.
But there are several—perhaps seven—of the large submarines afloat. They do their work in the most deadly way. They need have no fear of the average armed ocean line steamship, because the submersibles carry larger guns than the ships can manage and can overcome them is any kind of battle.
Five at least of these large undersea boats are known to be at work. It will be very surprising, it may be stated, if the same five ever return to their German bases. There is good reason to believe, in fat, that at least two of them were sunk recently.
As has been told in the Herald, the British Admiralty has the best of reason for feeling that for the first week on record Germany had lost early in January more submarines than she had constructed. This was regarded by the Admiralty as the turning point. It does not mean, however, that there may not be a bad week now and then, but it seems, in the opinion of naval officials, that the average finally has turned in favor of the Allies.
There is nothing to be gained in minimizing or disguising the submarine danger. The London newspapers speak very frankly about it. Practically all of them have said editorially in the last few weeks that unless the submarine is overcome there is nothing to be gained by increasing the army on the western front. The keynote of all the editorials is that the moment England has definitely lost her command of the sea—and her supremacy already has been threatened, they assert—she has lost her opportunity to conquer, with the aid of the other allied nations, the Central empires and their military autocrats.
The reorganization of the Admiralty in England was the result of the failure of the campaign against the submarine. Most outspoken criticism of the methods employed against the U-boats was heard in the House of Commons and is public debates elsewhere. Now younger men are in command of many of the important points. Particularly is this true of Dover, perhaps the most vital spot from the viewpoint of the shipping master, in all waters. A man in the prime of middle life is stationed there now, and the Admiralty frankly expects splendid results from the change.
America’s Powerful Aid
I was asked by one of the leading officials of the government here to say in the Herald that America has been a powerful force in preventing the submarines from taking what might have been almost a ruinous toll of the merchant shipping of England. Some day I shall write an article about the wonderful work of the young Americans of the destroyer fleet. No finer tale of the sea has ever been written than might be told of these rugged, bright-eyed young Americans who have braved the storms and the dangers of attack; who have worked desperately and heroically when they were green with illness of the sea and kept awake for as much as seventy-two hours at a time because there was no place on their tiny craft where they could remain stationary long enough to sleep.
When the war is over and the true epic of these destroyer boys—and commanders—is written the world will lift its hat to the American sailors. The Britisher has already done it. The American seaman from the destroyer fleet is an idol wherever he is found on this side of the Atlantic.
With each arrival of a new destroyer from the United States—and it is reported that they are coming very swiftly—the danger from the submarine is reduced. With all their new devices to avoid the destroyer, to detect steamships by distant sound, to hide themselves quickly and to conduct their operations on stormy dark nights, the submarine cannot escape the destroyers. They are as certain to get the stealthy prowlers as a hound is to get a fox in an open chase.
The tales of the cruelties practiced by these submarines are almost too numerous to record. Some of t hem would seem unbelievable if they were not absolutely borne out by documentary proof. I have heard a hundred accounts at the Admiralty, some of them thrilling and some heartrending and harrowing. They are not published. England does not give out the details. The world public does not hear them. In one case a big transport was sunk in the Mediterranean. Upwards of four hundred soldiers were killed. She hit a mine field laid only a few hours before by a submarine. The subsea assassin lay close by, and when a destroyer, which was convoying the transport, sought to rescue the drowning soldiers, a torpedo was shot into her and she went down with nearly all aboard and nearly all those she had almost saved.
The same U-boat then lay in wait, over the very spot where so many of her victims had drowned and hurled a torpedo into a second transport. Here, again, an attempt was made to torpedo a destroyer during its work of mercy, but the destroyer foiled the attack.
It would be untrue to say that Great Britain was not alarmed last April, when the submarines sank forty vessels of more than 1.600 tons one week and thirty-eight the week following, continuing the third week with twenty-four. Likewise it would be inaccurate to say that Great Britain was not more or less worried again at the beginning of this year, when, for the weeks ending December 30 and January 6, the number of large vessels destroyed was eighteen for each period. The reduction to six again for the succeeding week wiped out the pessimism. Last week there were nine.
There will be fluctuations in the record. If the report some week should show thirty vessels sent to the bottom it would not mean that Germany was moving again in the direction of a successful culmination of her submarine campaign. It would mean that the cargo ships had been unfortunate in choosing their courses and that the “breaks of the game,” to use the baseball phrase, were with the submarine commanders.
By far, the greater percentage of submarine losses has occurred in the Mediterranean during the last four months. There is a reason for that which is well understood in naval circles. For one thing there are no American destroyers in that region, but it does not follow that there will be plenty of them there.
The Admiralty will not disclose its new methods of dealing with the submarines. The reasons for this are quite obvious. But it is violating no rules of the censorship to say that while the Huns have been devoting their mechanical energies toward the almost uncanny perfection of the submarine, the scientific skill of Great Britain and America has been keeping well up with them and, while no one is so bold to say that the menace is overcome, it is perfectly safe to say that Germany cannot destroy enough merchant vessels to wring peace out of the Allies through pressure of want in Great Britain.
It is impossible to furnish anything like a list of the submarines destroyed or captured by the Allies. England has all that information locked up and there it will be kept till the end of the war. The purpose of the secrecy is plain. England does not want Germany to know what becomes of the submarines which go the “port of the missing ships.” It may be said on official authority that a good many have been captured in nets; that several have been crumpled up with chain devices used by destroyers; that several have been captured on the surface; that some have run afoul of danger spots themselves and that a great many have been sunk with depth bombs and direct shellfire. It is known that the submarines have a life of constant peril and seldom have a moment of peace above the surface of the ocean. they are hunted as a burglar is hunted when he is known to be around and their effectiveness as a result has been extraordinarily curtailed.
Frank admission is made that it is difficult to determine when a submarine has been sent to the bottom. Two years—or even a year—ago the presence of oil on the surface denoted a fatal shot, but that is no more. The new submarines discharge oil at will and frequently leave a sheet of oil over an expanse of sea a mile in diameter. It is not unusual for one to go to the bottom without leaving a single trace.
Stories told by survivors brought to port indicate that the mental state of the men on the submarine is at times appalling and that the men now have the shyness of poor-box thieves rather than the proud hauteur of the bold highwayman.
It was only recently that the first news was printed in England about the sinking of a pilot ship at the mouth of the Mersey, almost in the harbor of Liverpool. The sinking was brought close home to many prominent Americans because the mine or torpedo which did it must have narrowly missed an American steamship which only ten minutes before had passed the very spot where the pilot ship was struck.
Accompanying this article was an extensive table with the “Record of Losses by the German Submarines for Fifty Weeks,” as of February 18, 1918. The totals listed were: ‘1,600 Tons and Over', 810; ‘Under 1,600 Tons’, 298; ‘Fishing Vessels’, 181; ‘Unsuccessfully Attacked’, 662; and ‘Arrivals and Sailings’, 257,209.
A second major article Don Martin prepared for a Sunday edition once again was a "Sidelights" collection of brief stories about life in London in the war.
Narratives of Humor and Pathos Fill Capital of England in Time of War
American Soldier Has Difficulty in Explaining “You Should Worry”—Antithesis of Slacker Tried Subterfuge to Get Back in Trench Fighting
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Jan. 30.
Things both amusing and pathetic are to be seen in the British capital during these trying days.
The other day four soldiers were standing together in Trafalgar Square. The bars had closed a short time before. These particular warriors were in a state of wondrous exhilaration—not too much and not too little. One was an Australian with the Victoria Cross; one was a Canadian from British Columbia; one a Scottish Highlander; and the fourth an American of Italian ancestry. It was very evident that had an outsider insulted anyone of the four there would have been an “over the top” command instantly, for the quartet had been together for hours and had even tried to get some close harmony as they marched along the Strand.
What particularly amused the crow--which was not so much as noticed by the four musketeers—was the desperate attempt on the part of the American to make his pals understand just what one means when he says “you should worry.”
Any one who had attempted to drill the meaning of this American phrase into an English mind can sympathize with the soldier.
“When any one tells you you should worry it means you shouldn’t worry. Do you get that?” said the American.
Blank looks greeted this illuminating ray.
“I say if any one tells you to worry don’t worry; when you should worry is the time you shouldn’t worry—sure, plain as the Brooklyn Bridge.”
After a pause the Scotsman says:--
“If you don’t want a man to worry and he ain’t worrying, what’s the use o’ saying anything to him about worryin’ at all, because if you tell him not to worry he’ll be sure to worry and pretty soon his whole family’ll be worryin’”—
“AW come on an’ have a drink,” said the American.
“They’re closed till six.”
“Well, we should worry,” said the Canadian, producing a very small but welcome flask.
Then the four started off, arm in arm, singing “Over There.”
Sought Companionship
An American was sitting in Simpson’s restaurant recently having dinner when a hardy man in Canadian uniform started to converse with him. The Canadian was working in the Ford automobile factory in Windsor when the war started, but enlisted in a Canadian regiment and has been in five of the worst battles of the war. Hardly a handful of the men who stated with him are still on the roster. This particular soldier was about to leave for the trenches again after completing his leave. There was nothing remarkable about that, but this is his story:--
Inside his coat he wore the Victoria Cross. He got it at Ypres, where he carried a captain three hundred feet through No Man’s Land with bullets flying all around him. He has no acquaintances in England. He hasn’t a relative in the world. He was just hungering for someone to talk to when he saw the American. He reluctantly showed his decoration, and said it would give him great happiness if he had someone somewhere in the world who was close enough to him to slap him on the back and say, “Good, old chap.”
Still he wasn’t maudlin about it. He was just one of the thousands who are carrying honors around with them and have no relative or intimate friend to congratulate them. It’s war.
This particular soldier said as he left:--
“If I ever get back I’m going back to the States, but the odds are against me. We can’t always beat the fighting game. It’s like roulette. It gets you in the long run. There is only one man of my original company left besides myself.”
Appears in “Nationals”
“She’s wearing Nationals now.”
That is a phrase which had become a companion to “She’s wearing mourning.” Mrs. H. Allan Hawkey, said to be one of the best dressed women in England, has set the pace. She has designed what she calls a national dress. It is principally black, but has a touch of vivacity—enough so that a dashing young woman will not look dull nor a middle-aged woman too uninteresting. Mrs. Hawkey has worn the dress in fashionable restaurants and in Regent street, and it has attracted much attention. The indications are that it will be quite generally adopted. It is supposed to be appropriate for any occasion.
-- -- --
The antithesis of the slacker has been found in England. He is a Lancashire collier. Two years ago he “joined up, as the saying goes in Great Britain, but while at the front developed fever. He was sent home, and his efforts to get back were unavailing. Recently he went to the Victoria railway station in his uniform and took his place with an Australian regiment which was starting for the front. He got to France and was starting on his second fight when his identity was discovered and he was sent back to England. He is in no fit condition to endure military hardships. He was arrested. but not discharged, the only accusation against him being excessive patriotism.
-- -- --
A military officer has advertised for sale in one of the London papers, “A Cremona violin which I have played in the battles of the Somme, Arras and Messines.”
Boots for Singer Limes
London bootmakers are now making what they all “queue boots.” They are of very substantial design and have no claims to beauty. But they sell. Women started the fad. The new style of boot is for women to wear as they stand in the lines—or queues, as England terms them—waiting to but sugar, butter or meat. The work queue has come into new use also. Now women say, when producing a pound of steak or a quart of milk, “I queued for it.”
-- -- --
Those alarmists who believe that the employment of women at hard tasks might have a bad effect on the coming generation will find both surprise and consolation in a statement made here by an eminent authority at a meeting of the British Royal Nurses’ Association. It was declared that the heavier the work the healthier the offspring. For instance, those women who work at chain making, the heaviest munition employment given to women, have the healthiest children of all. Furthermore, they make enough money to give their offspring the very best of care.
-- -- --
A London hairdresser who sought exemption from the military draft was exempted the other day, but he took upon himself a big job in return for it. He promised to put a sign in front of his shop agreeing to shave any seaman or soldier without charge. His agreement is to run until the end of the war.
Scheme for Salvaging
A prominent Welsh engineer is perfecting a system for salvaging ships sunk by torpedoes in shallow water. Close attention is being given to his invention by the English government. As a large proportion of the ships destroyed by German submarines rest in shallow water the importance of the discovery or invention can well be realized, if it proves to be practicable.
-- -- --
With food none too plenty in England the suggestion has been made by Lady Glover, who is always taken very seriously by Parliament, that seagulls’ eggs be systematically gathered and used as food. In Norfolk and other coast sections hundreds of thousands of seagulls make their nests and the eggs could easily be gathered, Lady Glover says. In fact, thousands of them are now taken by the residents, but no special effort is made to market them.
-- -- --
The difference in cost between sumptuous hotel living in the British capital and New York can be noted from an item recently published in the London papers. The War Losses Commission, conducting an inquiry, learned that Lady Darcy de Knayth, a resident of the Alexandra Hotel, Knightsbridge, lived at the rate of $4,500 a year. She took rooms each at $12.50 a day. In the old Fifth Avenue Hotel the Scott-Strong family paid $45,000 a year for its rooms, on the Madison Square front, and many persons pay more than that at the Plaza, St. Regis, Vanderbilt and various other hotels.
Restored by Sea Shock
How sea shock restored a man’s reason has been officially told in the War Department records. When a batch of British prisoners were on the way from Holland to England, one of them, who was a bad mental case, disappeared. It was thought he had committed suicide. Later he was picked up far out at sea and brought to England completely restored to normal condition. The physicians said they believed the shock of the immersion in cold water cured him.
-- -- --
Robert Smith, a wealthy real estate dealer, died recently of an overdose of veronal. Some interesting statements were made at the inquest. They have ben given much prominence in the newspapers and the whole case has given London a subject to read and talk about as a relief from war gloom.
“Many people,” said Sir James Mackenzie, a famous heart specialist, “suffer from the vanity of middle age and think at forty-six they can do as they did at twenty-six.” The court justice asked Sir James as follows:--
“If a man had taken whiskey for twenty-five years, quite as much as was good for him, and you told him to stop, would he?”
“He would not,” was the reply.
It was also stated that veronal and kindred drugs create no craving, but destroy one’s moral dense.
Plea for Carrier Pigeons
Declaring that homing pigeons are solders and seamen and should be rated at such, like other members of the King’s naval and military forces, government officials have sent out word to all hunters to be sure not to kill these valuable birds.
The message says that the work of the birds is a matter of life and death to the fighting men and that many a man owes his life to-day to the speed and faithfulness of the homing pigeon.
Skipper Thomas Crisp, V. C., who died at the wheel under fire from a German submarine, lived long enough to despatch a message by pigeon. The bird sped away with the dying hero’s last request for help for his crew, and they were saved—but only through the timely arrival of their pigeon messenger.
On another occasion a flying boat and a hydroplane both got into difficulties in stormy weather, and it seemed that all lives must be lost. A message for help was sent out by pigeon. In the teeth of a strong wind the gallant bird fought its way home, only to die of exhaustion on arrival. But its message had been delivered, assistance was sent with all speed, and the lives of both crews were saved,
“For To-Die You Shall Die”
It is not in France only that American soldiers and “jackies” are experiencing trouble in understanding the local tongue. A conversation with some of the English people is not without its hazards, as explained by the following incident, told by an American seaman in London:--
This young man from the United States went to Scotland Yard to report that he was changing his place of abode, inasmuch as he was on his way to a hospital as a patient.
The sergeant behind the desk looked up at him and said:--“Are you going down to die?’
The worried American looked doleful and replied:--“Well, if I do I will not be any more trouble to you, except that you will have to ship my body back to America.”
Gloomily he started to leave the office, when a clerk laughingly told him that the sergeant said:--“Are you going down to-day?” In England one says ‘male,’ ‘sail,’ ‘gale,’ or ‘day’ like ‘mile,’ ‘sile,’ ‘gile,’ or ‘die.’ Still the Britishers sniff at the American who says ‘here’ instead of ‘h’yah.’
Here are the headlines of two other articles dated January 30, published in the February 17 Sunday edition. One relates the good works of the American Y.M.C.A., the other, an amazing case of assistance on a sinking ship.
WELCOME TO ALL, MOTTO OF EAGLE HUT IN LONDON
Warm Baths and Hot Food Always Ready for Soldier or Seaman
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No.130 Fleet Street, London, Jan. 30.
Amputates Leg With Clasp Knife and Saves a Life
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Jan. 30.
Also in the February 17 Herald Sunday edition, a whole page was dedicated to articles about the activities of the Red Cross, including this wonderful one by Don Martin dated January 30.
American Women Work in London to Aid Red Cross
Many Volunteers Give Their Services at Headquarters in Grosvenor Square
—Movement Began Modestly in December 1916
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Jan. 30
As you pass No. 36 Grosvenor Gardens and look in at the windows you see a group of busy women in the smart, spotless white garb of the Red Cross busily engaged with machine and needle, making garments and comforts of all sorts for the wounded. They are the workers of the American Red Cross, and if there is a busier hive of industry in London or elsewhere in all the British islands it will be difficult to find.
In the various room of the mansion there are 260 women, ten of whom are volunteer workers, the others wives of officers, many of them Belgians of gentle birth, earning a small living for their families, owing to their husbands having given up their usual employment to serve with the armies at the front. Between them they send out to hospitals something like a quarter of a million articles weekly, from bandages and dressings to pajamas and dressing gowns for the wounded soldiers.
The American Red Cross Workroom began very modestly in December 1916 at No. 41 Hertford street, Mayfair. The idea of bringing together a band of American women voluntary workers originated with Mrs. H. Stokes Waite. No sooner had she suggested it to some American women resident in London than the idea was eagerly taken up.
Committee Retains First Members
A committee was formed, which never has varied in its membership from the day of organization to this. Each undertook a particular department. Mrs. Waite was elected chairman of the committee; Mrs. Lorin Woodruff, vice chairman; Mrs. Deane Mitchell, honorary secretary; Mrs. Chester Purington, honorary treasurer; Mrs. George H. Short is buyer; Mrs. Tobey and Mrs. Roderick McLeod are in charge of making the surgical dressings; Mrs. Spencer looks after making the roller bandages; Mrs. Francis Wilcox, the many tailed bandages and pneumonia jackets; Mrs. Robert McClellan has under her control the makers of garments such as dressing gowns and pajamas, day and night shirts, Etc.; Mrs. Blackwell has the outwork department under her control; Mrs. Frothingham and Mrs. McCall look after the paid workers; Miss Naylor has the responsible stock department under her sole charge, and the canteen is run by Mrs. Walker.
Working solely for Great Britain and her allies to begin with, the American Red Cross Workroom obtained immediate and thankful recognition from the British War Office. The American Hospital at Paignton already had been opened, and immediately orders for necessities came from there. They also were called upon to “outfit” the Lancaster Gate Hospital for Officers with garments.
American Women Gladly Work
Many American women residing in England who had been working elsewhere for British hospitals, having learned their work, came readily to the American Red Cross Workroom, and they, in turn, were useful in instructing new voluntary workers who came flocking to Hertford street to show their sympathy with the Allies in making comforts for the wounded.
To begin with, they all were voluntary workers, the wives of well known American business men in London, numbering about thirty, but as the work increased—as it did very rapidly—and the excellence of the work done by these American women was recognized orders came in such quantities that Mrs. Waite conceived another admirable idea. That was to give help to the wives of officers hit by the war, through their having to give up civil employment and don the khaki of the British soldier. The wives of Belgian officers wee included as well, and turned out some of the finest and most delicate work in the workrooms. To cover their travelling expenses and food, they are paid at the rate of twenty-five shillings a week, all of which charges are met by the profits of the canteen, where the workers pay for their lunches and afternoon teas. Thus no subscriptions are required to meet the cost of the paid workers at least.
Paid Workers There Daily
The paid workers are there every day from ten in the morning till five in the evening. The voluntary workers do not give their whole time to the work. There would not be sufficient accommodation for them all, but about a hundred voluntary workers are engaged every day, giving two or three days a week to the work, on the other days devoting their attention to other war work in which they are interested.
When America joined the Allies the orders for supplies increased enormously, so that a larger house was needed. That was found at No. 36 Grosvenor Gardens, near the American Embassy and Red Cross Headquarters, into which Mrs. Waite and her staff moved last month.
But all the work is not done on the spot. There are other innumerable voluntary workers who do an immense amount of work at home, sending it in an unfinished state to Grosvenor Gardens to be finished.
Besides the American Women’s Hospital at Paignton and the Hospital for Officers at Lancaster Gate the American Workrooms are now supplying Lady Bathhurst’s Hospital Bathhurst House, Belgrave Square; the Ward Hospital at Relgate Hill, St. Katherine’s Lodge, Regent’s Park, and the Red Cross Military Hospital No. 4, Liverpool. Besides these there is Mrs. Whiteslaw Reid’s hospital in Paris, which requires a large amount of garments, dressings and bandages.
Demands Are Enormous
As showing the enormous demands made on the American Red Cross Workrooms, only recently an appeal was received from the Paris headquarters of the American army for 200,000 front bandages to meet the immediate requirements of the American army. Needless to say, the ladies of the American Red Cross Workrooms set themselves to meet these new requirements, agreeing to send 50,000 packages containing twelve different surgical dressings each month. And this demand is not taken as a maximum, but as a minimum. If they can exceed this, as they surely will, they will do it.
To assist them in their work they have organized nineteen British voluntary outwork branches in various parts of England, and this is the responsible work which Mrs. Blackwell supervises. The materials, patterns of finished garments and dressings are sent out in large hampers from headquarters and returned when finished. Fifty hampers are in constant circulation.
Don Martin also wrote an article about theater dated January 30, which was published in the February 17 Sunday edition of the New York Herald. It was a “news and gossip” article about London plays, showing Don Martin’s deep interest in theater.
News and Gossip of London Stage
“Love in a Cottage” a Treat—Other Novelties Please Wartime Audiences
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Jan. 30.
London welcomed two new plays this week and is prepared to keep them going for a long time.
“Love in a Cottage” by W. Somerset Maugham is one of the most entertaining plays seen in the British capital in a long time, and New York may be prepared sooner or later for a real treat. [Don Martin saw this on Jan 26; see diary entry.]
Mr. Maugham has the faculty of taking a wilderness of rank human growths, finding therein a sweet flower and a rugged oak and having the one flourish under the protecting shadow of the other. He has not abandoned his conventional theme in his latest play. As the nurse who dreams of wealth and power and gets both, only to find that wealth brings her a flood of English society parasites and a deluge of unhappiness, whereupon she marries a physician who is penniless but satisfied that only love in a cottage will give to him solace. Miss Marie Lohr has a part that is ideally suited to her.
The play opens in Lake Como, where Miss Lohr is nurse to a woman whose husband has ennui and so many millions that he can’t keep his fortunes from swelling. He craves youth and falls in love with the nurse, but it is strictly platonic and acts for a time merely as a panacea for a hungry heart. The nurse’s husband dies and leaves a fortune to her which, however, she must surrender if she marries. She becomes a social queen (so she thinks), but every one wants to borrow money or sell something to her. She flees through the window of her London apartment just as the King is about to enter as the guest at an entertainment. She says to her maid:--“Tell the orchestra to change the tune it is playing—play “All Dressed Up and No Place To Go.” She goes back to Lake Como in a sleeping car, clad in ostrich feathers and lingerie and gets there just in time to see the husband of her wealthy employer of a year previous shoot himself because money could not bring his happiness or youth. Then the nurse becomes the bride of the physician.
The play is splendidly done. The cast is made up of stars. The Globe Theatre was packed and Miss Lohr was called a dozen times before the curtain. It was a triumph for her because she appeared for the first time jointly as a star and manager. The lines of the play are brilliant and throughout there are American touches, as for instance:--
“The wisest man I ever knew was from New York. He gave big parties and left just as his guests arrived.”
“Valentine,” a musical comedy, also is a success. [Don Martin saw this on Jan 24; see diary entry.] The music is by Napoleon Lambelet and the lyrics by Arthur Davenport. The theme is an old one, but it has been ingeniously revamped. A girl is brought up in seclusion as a Prince because the people of her particular principality insist upon a man for the throne. The difficulties she encounters—and particularly those her parents meet—furnish the vehicle for some wholesome fun, with hardly a suggestive touch, which on opening night seemed disappointing to the front rows and pleasant to the balconies.
Haydn Coffin, son of a Philadelphia dentist, sang the Prince’s role. He has been in England for twenty-five years and was in his prime when he started. He practically had gone into retirement, but was drafted for this part because of the absence at the front of the younger men. He did well and received a tremendous sentimental welcome from the audience. The music was not pretentious, but there are a few sprightly songs which Miss Marjorie Gordon sings delightfully.
Here are some of the lines which brought the heartiest laughter:--
“That wife of mine is a wonder,” says Walter Passmore, the comedian. “She’s so considerate. She’s the kind of a wife who makes her husband sleep on the roof to save sand bags.”
“Where’d you get that scar?” asks someone of the comedian, pointing to a mark over the bridge of his nose. “That’s not a scar; that’s where the glass rests.”
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Mr. Albert de Courville now has fixed definitely next Wednesday for presenting at the Strand the American thriller “Cheating Cheaters,” the success of which in America has awakened the liveliest interest this side. Miss Shirley Kellogg is to play Nancy Carey, the daring heroine. [Don Martin saw this play on Feb 4; see diary entry.]
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