Don Martin diary entry for Friday,
February 15, 1918: Got up at noon. Went to the office and read
the papers. Saw Colonel Buchan and Lord Robert Cecil. Latter intimated there
will be no concrete economic discrimination against Germany after the war, but
that the Allies will inevitably favor each other. Walked over from Whitehall
with Draper of the Tribune. He understandably has a sneaky feeling of
friendliness for Germany. I told him what my views are about the international
murderers and highwaymen. Had dinner at Simpson’s. Went to office and wrote a
lot of business letters.
Submarine menace getting worse. Threatened
Hun drive on West front not started. I think it is largely bluff. Feeling
growing there can be no military decision. Submarines are the vital factor. No
disguising that. World helpless before them.
Weather very nice.
That
evening Don Martin wrote a long letter to his sister Alta. Besides recounting
much of what he wrote in other letters, he had the following to say about the
situation in England and the war.
Alta:
.... In about ten days the
air raid period will be here again. The Germans presumably will bombard London
again. Despite the hundreds of fliers who go up to oppose them they are able to
fly over the city. The sky is a big place. It is no doubt thrilling to go out
and watch the combats in the air but it is far wiser to stay inside and that is
what I intend to do. Anyone with sense will do the same thing. You see when
airships, or aeroplanes, appear, three or four hundred guns all over London
send up shrapnel which bursts well up in the air and a piece of it in its
descent is sufficient to fracture a skull. ... The air raids are genuinely
serious affairs. A bomb weighs all the way from 100 to 500 pounds and is
composed of T. N. T. It would go straight to the cellar of an ordinary five or
six story building.
I had an interesting time Tuesday. I went
to the House of Lords to see the opening and to hear the King. I heard him and
saw him. He spoke in a splendid voice and read his speech as though he
understood every word of it. The Queen sat beside him on an ermine-clad chair
and beside the King was the Prince of Wales, a very nervous looking youngster who
was home from the Italian front for the occasion. The King is a very human
person. Of course he has nothing whatever to do with the war. He is merely a
symbol of unity. It was a very pompous ceremony and was worth seeing. Then I
went to the Commons and saw the opening there. I was very fortunate because
Asquith, former Premier, and Lloyd George, present Premier, had a very
sensational clash over the Versailles conference. They are not the best of
friends. Asquith was removed as Premier and Lloyd George was selected as a sort
of compromise. Asquith is a brilliant man and he baited George till there was a
very spectacular tilt back and forth. It lasted three hours... Tomorrow morning
I am going to the Bow Street court to hear the case of Colonel Repington, who
is to be examined for violation of the Defense of the Realm Act. He criticized
the government for “bungling the war.” This may turn out to be a very noted
case ....
... The war is a sad affair.
It would seem as if neither side could possibly score what the world would
regard as a military victory, no matter how long the thing runs. The side will
win which can keep gaining in air strength and still keep peace back home. ...
The world is getting pretty weary of the war but the Allies want to lick
Germany. Still the German people are ready to live on water and black bread
while the other people will not accept this. There will never be a German peace
unless the submarine completely wipes out the commerce of the world. ...
England is up against it because of the submarines which are worse now than
ever and will probably continue to get worse. ... It all depends on what
America can do. If enough ships are launched and kept afloat to transport a
million or two men and the supplies necessary to maintain them, Germany will be
whipped good.
... Except for the presence
of tens of thousands of khaki clad men in the streets one would not know
anything was wrong with England. Business goes on just as usual apparently.
Manufacturing is at a standstill though. Only “essentials” are made now. All
other factories are making munitions and kindred things. Food is hard to get.
Everyone is on a ration. Meat, sugar and butter are very scarce but vegetables
are plentiful. Tobacco costs quite a bit and saloons are open only five hours a
day. The streets are pitch dark at night and women work as street cleaners, bus
conductors, postwomen and as elevator operators. Young men, except those who
use crutches or wear service badges, are seldom seen yet the streets are
crowded all the time. Don
Don Martin
wrote a lot of dispatches on Feb 15 that were mailed to New York. It seems they
went on different ships. Some stories were published in the New York Herald on
Sunday, March 3, 1918, and some were published a week later on Sunday, March
10, 1918.
One of the stories published March 3 was about a British private’s
harrowing tale.
Briton,
Thigh Shattered, Hides Behind German Line Two Months, Then Escapes
Private
Takes Refuge in Shell Hole and Enemy Believes Him Dead—He Crawls Across Trench
and No Man’s Land to English Position
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
What is regarded as one of the most
astounding stories of the war is told by Private J. Taylor, of the London
regiment, who has received a Distinguished Conduct Medal. Private Taylor’s own
story, as told in the London Express, is as follows:--
“It was during one of the attacks on
part of the Hindenburg line on June 16 last year,” he said. “We had gone over
the top two companies together, following up a successful attack made in the
same direction on the previous day. This time we were met by a terrific enemy
fire, and our fellows were dropping like ninepins. I was a stretcher bearer,
and I was trying to patch up one of our men who was down, when I was knocked
out myself by a bullet which fractured my thigh.
Behind
Enemy’s Trench
“After that I remembered nothing for
some hours. It may have been a day or it may have been two when I recovered consciousness,
with a parching thirst and a great sense of weariness and pain.
“I discovered afterward that we must
have passed beyond our objective, and we were therefore behind the enemy’s
trench and support trench at this point. His front trench had been taken on the
previous day, and these he now occupied were not backed up by others, but had
open country behind them. I did not know at the time, however, that I was
behind the enemy’s line at all. I managed to crawl into a large shell hole near
at hand, and lay there another day and night.
“Then a comrade, a man named Peters,
joined me. He aso h ad been wounded, but could move rather more freely. He had
found shelter in another hole near by.
“We could tell the position of our own
trenches fairly accurately by watching the fire of the trench mortars, which
seemed about a thousand yards away. I was in too much pain and too weak to
move. We lay together all day in the hole, expecting every minute to be hit,
and at night Peters crept out and foraged among the dead for scraps of bully
beef and ‘iron rations’ and water from their bottles. After a few days,
mercifully it began to rain, and by spreading our capes and a sheet we
collected drops of muddy water, which just kept us alive.
Lived
in Hiding For Five Weeks
“This sort of existence lasted for
about five weeks. Then one night Peters went out and did not re turn. I have
learned since that he was taken prisoner.
“It was the following night that the
Germans, evidently rendered suspicious by the capture of Peters, came out—three
of them—to the hole where I was lying. I lay perfectly still. One of them
lifted my leg, luckily not the one that was broken, or I should probably have
cried out. They seemed satisfied and went away.
“I was now left without help in getting
food or drink. During the next fortnight I eked out the small remains of bully
beef; then for two days I had nothing. It was then, feeling that nothing worse
could happen to me, that I resolved to try to crawl toward our own lines.
“It was an inky black night when I
started. I had gone some distance when unexpectedly I came on the German
trench. I could have put out my hand and touched the men. The trench, a deep,
narrow one, was lightly held, and it would have been impossible for me with my
broken leg to have climbed out of it again, even if I had not been seen and
seized. I managed to crawl a little
distance along to a quiet point, and the, summoning up all the strength I
could, flung myself across. The Boches neither saw nor heard.
Reaches
British Advance Position
“The next thing I knew I was in their
wire, and how I scrambled through I do not know. I was a mass of cuts and blood
and rags when it was over. I crawled on across No Man’s and, and presently was
against more wire. It did not occur to me at the time that it was British wire,
and I was dead beat. Just then a Very light shot up beside me, and in its flash
I saw an unmistakable British face the other side of the wire. I shouted ‘Don’t
shoot; I’m a Tommy.” A sergeant called out to know who I was; then three of
them lifted me over the wire.
“I must have been a sight; no clothes,
starved almost to the bone, bearded, filthy; but the men were amazed to see me
at all. They were an advanced machine gun post and had been watching me
crawling toward them, ready to pick me off at the right moment.
“They told me it was a bank holiday I
should remember, and from that I learnt that it was August. I had lost all
count of the days.”
Private Taylor is a single man, about
twenty-five, and before the war worked in a factory in London. He was seven
times rejected for the army owing to the fact that he is blind in the right
eye, but as he was otherwise fit he succeeded at last in evading the sight test
by a feat of memory and has developed almost into a marksman, firing from the
left shoulder. Although he is still obliged to use crutches, he expects to
recover the use of both limbs.
Sergeant
Captures Fifteen Men
So many stories of brave deeds come
from the battle fronts that it is difficult for the staffs to select the heroes
most entitled to military honors. A correspondent of the Herald has gone
through a record of the most recent awards and chosen the following as worthy
of special newspaper mention: [Here
follow eight stories of British heroism.]
Another story published
in the New York Herald on Sunday, March 3, 1918 was Arthur Sproul's report about Russia. It was dated February 15, although Don Martin had interviewed Sproul on February 2.
RUSSIA,
FREED OF TSAR, DRUNK WITH TASTE OF LIBERTY
A. E. Sproul, American,
Tells of Chaos Now Existing in Empire
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
Russian
chaos and Russian possibilities are described in detail by Arthur Elliot
Sproul, an American manufacturer of chemical and drug supplies, who has just
returned from Petrograd and Moscow after a stay there of a year. He soon will
leave for America.
He declines
to prophesy what may happen in the Russian nation. Almost anything might
happen, he declares.
There is no
police authority at the present time. Crime is rampant. Industries are at a
standstill. Food lines are everywhere. Farm produce has reached a minimum.
There is a diversity of radical opinion which forbodes ill for any new
government except one agreed upon by all the elements.
What Russia
needs is a Lincoln. If none can rise out of the ruins of the empire, says Mr.
Sproul, then it will require a group of miniature Lincolns, each to reorganize
a particular geographical division of the country. German intrigue has been in evidence
everywhere. How far it is responsible for the present deplorable condition in
Russia, Mr. Sproul will not undertake to tell.
Wants To Be Respected Nation
“The world
should not, however, condemn Russia,” said Mr. Sproul when I saw him at the
Berkely Hotel. “It is no fairer to judge Russia by her performances during the
last year than it would be to judge a boy when he is having a fit of
tantrums—while his father is spanking him. Russia wants to be a nation
respected by the world, and she will be, but it will take a long time before
order an come out of the seemingly hopeless chaos.
“Would she
make a peace which would deprive her of some of her territory? I dare say she
would do almost anything to be relieved of the burdens of war and have the
blessings of peace and freedom. There are people like Milukoff who are
mortified because Russia did not keep her place in the allied circle of nations
and maintain her part of the pact of Paris, but they are powerless.
“The
Bolsheviki are all powerful now, but there is no telling how long they will
remain on top or who may succeed them. The country is a kaleidoscope. Kerensky
is gone—somewhere. He had a great opportunity, but he did not measure up to it.
When a man of iron will was needed he procrastinated. The Tsar is in Tobolsk.
He will never be permitted to return. The people might stand for almost
anything else, but never again a return of the Romanoffs.
Drunk With Liberty
They have
had a taste of freedom and it has become an orgy. They are drunk with the
spirit of liberty. It is perhaps not to be wondered at and certainly not to be
condemned. It is difficult for the people of the rest of the world to realize
the weight of the yoke the people of Russia had about their necks for
generations. Now they have shaken it off and they are so free and ambitious
they don’t know what to do.
“Where it
will end no one can tell. Factories are closed. In many cases the employees
took the industries over and agreed to pay the owners so much rental. The new
operatives conducted them a short time and gave up. There was no head and no
system. Other employees laid down their tools and have been idle ever since.
Still they present themselves each week and demand pay. They believe the
millennium has come and that they are to receive money without work—are to
share in the wealth of the country.
“No one is
safeguarded against criminal attack. Robberies and murders are frequent. If a
man is killed in the street, he is killed, and that is all there is to it.
There is no one to make an arrest and no one to complain to.
Americans Treated With Respect
“A well
dressed man in the street is just naturally looked upon as part of the old
autocracy and is robbed. That is the end of that also. I don’t say every one is
robbed. No Americans or Englishmen were bothered, so far as I know. Americans
are treated with a great deal of respect. The Russians have no dislike for the
United States, although the Bolsheviki are displeased that America has not
recognized them.
“I had a
rather nerve racking experience in Moscow. With two hundred other persons,
largely foreigners, I was barricaded in the Metropole Hotel, Moscow, for seven
days. The ins, or old officials of the government, had mounted guns on the roof
and in the upper floors of the hotel, unknown to the occupants, and the
Bolsheviki, determined to rout the old officials, besieged the hotel. We
repaired to the inside rooms and the cellar, and no one was hurt during the
seven days, although one Roumanian went stark mad and we all suffered for food
and proper rest.
Hotel Fairly Riddled
“The hotel
garrison defended the place against machine gun fire and rifle fire, but
finally gave up and escaped. We were all marched from the cellar, presumably to
be executed, but to our surprise the mantled, rough looking Bolsheviki treated
us with respect and let us go our ways.
“They showed
particular courtesy to the women and children. Princess Dolgouriki was one of
us. She was very brave.
“There were
twenty-six bullet holes in the window of my room, and the beautiful five story
building—the best hotel in Russia—was fairly riddled. After this I began preparations
to get out of Russia. The National City Bank representative, the representative
of the Cheeseborough Company, also of New York, and several other prominent
Americans left the city and went east. I came to London, by way of Finland,
Sweden and Norway.
“There will
be wonderful business opportunities in Russia after the country settles down.
It is a veritable mine of wealth and opportunity. The United States, I fear,
had not fully appreciated what lay there for it. Neither had the other
countries, with the exception of Germany, which got about half of all the
Russian business. Things will be different now. Germany would have made a
complete commercial conquest of Russia in another generation if he had not
begun the war. Now she will be at a tremendous disadvantage.
“My idea is
that the friendly nations should appoint a commission of the best men to be
had, to go to Russia and reorganize the government, with an aim only to the
protection and promotion of the interest of the people. It seems to me that
this may have to be done if Russia is to be saved from herself and for the
world.”
And
another mailed story published on Sunday, March 3, 1918 was a Sidelights, with a series of short
vignettes.
“BUMPTIOUSNESS”
DELETED, BRITISH PRAISE AMERICAN SOLDIERS AS FINEST LOOKING MEN IN EUROPE
London
Won by Chivalry, Modesty and Splendid Bearing of Officers Sent Over—Building
Halted by War, Hotel Packed to Roof and Fortunes Made by Innkeepers Despite
High Cost of Materials
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
London rapidly is revising its opinion
of America. It is betraying no secret nor is it endangering international amity
to say that the average Britisher always looked upon the American as bumptious.
That is the English word. Now and then a Britisher who has been in the United
States long enough to acquire some American habits of speech describes it this
way:--
“They are rather inclined some times to
exude hot air. Is that the way it should be stated?”
While it may be true that some Americans
have in times past given a sort of justification for this interpretation of
their character, the American soldier
has given an entirely different impression. I have heard English and Canadian
officers pay most glowing eulogies to the uniformed men from the United States.
“They are the finest looking men in
Europe to-day.” said a British general recently. “Why they are nothing like
what some people had said they might be. They are reserved, studious, keen and
determined to learn. They say very frankly that they are not so childish as to
believe they can come over and teach veterans a game which is a science
requiring years to master. They are most eager to learn, and they are learning
with most amazing speed.”
America may well be proud of the men it
is sending over. Hundreds of officers are periodically seen in the hotels and
clubs. They are as a rule stalwart, alert, clean limbed and as natty as if they
just came our of the most fashionable Fifth avenue or Regent street tailor
shop.
They mind their own business and
constantly give examples of gallantry—social chivalry perhaps it might be
called—which brings smiles or nods of profound approval from the discriminating
English matrons. The home folk may well tip their hat to the boys abroad.
England and France are already doing it.
*
* *
There is no building in London now. Not
a brick is being laid or a girder set. In many parts of the city huge steel
frames show where new structures were going up when the war started. Two new
hotels were being erected, but the work has been abandoned. All men able to
work are in the essential trades or at the front. Incidentally, the hotels in
London are making money hand over fist. Prices are high, but the demand for
rooms is very pressing. Thousands of Londoners have closed their town houses
and moved to the hotels, which offer much greater security than private houses
during air raids, and the city expects air raids till the war ends. I am told
that one hotel on the Strand made $180,000 net profit last year, which is twice
as much as it cleared before in the same period.
*
* *
Persons of wealth frequently donate
valuable jewels for the various war charities. A gift which aroused much
speculation and interest was made the other day to the British Red Cross. It consisted
of a famous Gainsborough—a portrait of Captain Cornwall—and the beautiful
picture by G. F. Watts known as “Ariadne.” The donors requested that their
names be not given.
*
* *
Young America is very much in earnest
about its part in the war, and this spirit is especially evident at those
aerodromes where “Wilson’s boys” are learning to fly.
A flight commander remarked yesterday
that the keenness of the cadets in his charge is inspiring. They are, he said,
a lean, lusty lot of youngsters, with nerve for anything, and the hardest thing
to impress upon them is that it is necessary to be able to “taxi” across the
flying ground before attempting “stunts” in the air.
“These American cadets,” he said, “are
very proud of their uniforms and show it rather more openly than is the custom
with the English boys. For instance, they will discuss points in the fitting of
a tunic, Etc., quite regardless of the good natured banter of their English
cousins. In fact, they are all very spick and span without being ‘finicky,’ and
their care for detail is merely symbolical of a real thoroughness which aims at
becoming proficient in the shortest possible time.
*
* *
Here is an example of the “considerable
damage of great military importance” the Hun air raiders who visited London
this week accomplished:--
Eight persons were killed by a bomb
which fell on a house Tuesday night in a district in the southwestern outskirts
of London.
The household comprised Mrs. Kerley,
the wife of a soldier; her four girls and a boy, whose ages ranged from eleven
years to four months; her niece, and an aged widow who lived with her. The
mother had apparently taken refuge with the children in a cellar, the six
bodies being found huddled up together under a mass of bricks. The mother was still
clasping her baby. Her niece and the lodger, aged seventy, were found a short
distance away.
The husband, Sergeant Major Kerley, who
was in the Mons retreat and has since been wounded, is now stationed at a home
depot. He visited his home on Monday, stopping the night and leaving on Tuesday
morning.
*
* *
Now the Germans, it seems, have laid
claim to credit that really belongs to the skunk. Professor Arthur Denby told a
King’s College audience that poison gas was used successfully by the skunk thousands
of years before the Germans ever thought of it. Professor Denby also said the
tapeworm has a history full of romance, full of cunning contrivances and
hairbreadth escapes. He continued his optimistic lecture by an eloquent defense
of the bedbug. The pest, he says was not always unkind to man. On the contrary,
his original function was to destroy the beetle which destroyed expensive
furniture.
*
* *
New York city’s unique claim for
exemption from military duties came from a man who said he was the only person
in America who could prune a ukulele. His claim was refused on the ground that
any one who could prune a ukulele ought to be put in the first line trenches
immediately.
Now England comes forward with a claim
that rivals this. A Southwark tribunal granted a two months’ exemption to a man
who said he was an expert in the construction of padded cells.
*
* *
With the obituaries of the late Mr.
Alfred de Rothschild the London newspapers printed many anecdotes concerning
the famous financier. One of them relates to a foppish young man who years ago
called at the Rothschild home and tried to impress the financier with his
importance and incidentally with his personal decorations. Among other things
he boastfully displayed a pair of malachite cuff links. Mr. Rothschild smiled
and said:-- “Come in here and I’ll show you a mantelpiece of the same.”
Yet another published on
March 3 was about the Eagle Hut.
American
Officers Inn Becomes Popular with Sojourners in England
Men
Celebrate Birthday of Charles Dickens—Stories of Big Outrages Harrow Soul of
Quiet House Mother, Mrs. Tate
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
As the Eagle Hut has become such a
popular and hay home for American as well as Canadian and Australian soldiers,
so is the American Officers’ Inn becoming a most popular resort for both
American and British officers. The latest activity of the younger of the
American women who operate the inn is to take American officers out to dinner
in the evening and bring them back to a dance, at which only American dances
are danced to American music. Then they all sit on the floor in front of the
blazing fire and sing American songs. This is a weekly scheme at present, but
the officers would like it oftener or else receive opportunities of
reciprocating.
*
* *
Lady Ward, Mrs. Spender Clay and other
American women interested in the American Officers’ Inn are busy using their
persuasive powers to bring to the inn once a week some of the best known and
most eloquent after dinner English speakers to talk to the officers on
interesting subjects connected with the war. A beginning was made last Tuesday,
when Captain Ormsby Gore, M. P., gave a discourse on Jerusalem and Mesopotamia.
*
* *
The 106th anniversary of the
birth of Charles Dickens, on February 17, will be observed in a manner in which
it was never observed before by the American men at the Eagle Hut. Some of
Dickens’ admirers, with W. A. McIntyre, of the Eagle Hut staff, to assist them,
have obtained the services of Edwin Drew, the last survivor of the London
Dickens Society, to act as guide. A band of American soldiers and sailors,
carrying wreaths, will march to Westminster Abbey and place them over the tomb
of the great novelist in the Poets’ Corner. Mr. Drew will give an hour’s
discourse on memories of Dickens.
*
* *
Mack Olsen, of New York, has arrived in
London and joined the staff of the Y. M. C. A., taking charge of the canteen
work in Great Britain.
*
* *
“I heard of the Eagle hut in British
East Africa,” said a young English sailor who came into the Eagle Hut the other
evening and was invited by a little party of American sailors to join them at
their supper table. “Huh,” said one of the Americans, “I heard of the Eagle Hut
in Hawaii.” So wide has the fame of the American Y. M. C. A. hut in London
become.
*
* *
The work of the voluntary workers at
the hut becomes harder and harder every week. There is always a crowd waiting
for tables at the meal hours; never a bed is vacant at night. There is a band
of night workers, some fifty in number—who call themselves the “Eagle Hutters.”
Their president is James Van Allen Shields, the London representative of the
Columbia Graphonone Company, whose records are a great source of delight to the
soldiers and seamen who visit the hut. The honorary secretary is E. F. Wright.
As a distinguished mark the men have received badges with the red triangle of
the Y. M. C. A., enclosing the American eagle, and the word “Hut” beneath. But
more members of the “Eagle Hutters” are wanted, for, as Mr. Shields says, it
takes a lot of doing to look after about two hundred men who come in wanting
beds and meals every night.
*
* *
Mrs.
Tate said that he hears from the young soldiers and seamen remarkable tales of
their experiences at the front and afloat, some of which harrowed her soul. The
other day she noticed a young seaman nervously fingering a little piece of
black cloth. Asking what she could do for him, he replied by requesting a
needle and thread. He wanted to make a mourning band. Then he told her his
tale:--
A little while ago his brother, also a
seaman, was on a ship that was torpedoed by a U-boat, and was taken prisoner.
With customary Hun brutality the crew was busy shooting the English seamen as
they struggled in the water. The Hun commander handed his prisoner a gun and
ordered him to shoot his messmates as they were swimming for their lives. He
refused, saying he would rather die, and sprang into the sea, receiving a
German bullet in his breast. He was rescued by a patrol boat, but died, but not
before he had told his story. As his body was committed to the deep the seamen
on the patrol boat registered a vow never to take a German prisoner.
And still another published on March
3 was about the horse Knockalong.
Famous
Horse Also a Victim of the Bolsheviki
Knockalong,
After Enduring a Long Campaign, Dies of Mistreatment and Neglect
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
Knockalong,
Europe’s most famous horse, is dead. He was ridden to death by a Bolshevik.
After a career at the horse shows all over the Continent and in England and a
brilliant war record on the eastern front, he met a most humiliating end, and
poems are being written about him.
“A
moment staggering, feebly fleet,
A moment with a faint, low neigh,
He
answer’d and then fell;
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay,
And,
reeking limbs immovable,
His first and last career is done!”
That
is from Byron’s “Mazeppa” and has been quoted by many of Knockalong’s biographers
since the news of the famous charger’s death came from Russia.
Just prior to the war Mr. Walter Winans
bought the gray thoroughbred from Lieutenant Swan, of the Rifle Brigade. He was
exhibited at the International Horse Show at Olympia and Richmond and sent to
Petrograd, where he won the Emperor’s prize. Captain Bertram, known to horse
lovers the world over, rode Knockalong.
Very recently, while running riot in
Petrograd, the Bolsheviki broke into the stable where Knockalong was kept. The
mob took the horse out and rode him all day without food or water. Knockalong
finally dropped in his tracks and lay unattended for two days, when he died.
Colonel Bertram was deeply affected by
the loss of his pet stead, which, in addition was a wonderful jumper, and was
almost human in his kindness.
And then there was a story published March 3 about rationing in Britain.
LONDON
NO PLACE UNDER RATIONING LAW FOR GLUTTON
England
Is Enforcing Food Saving Rules with Firmness and Equality
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
London is no place for an epicure or a
glutton.
For two weeks rationing has been in
force in the hotels and restaurants. In a few days—February 25—rationing will
be in force all over England. The people do not like it, but they want to win
the war—are determined to win the war—and they are resigned to almost any form
of self-denial or sacrifice.
Their appetites are the first to feel
privation.
Meatless breakfasts have been the rule
for almost a month. Butter has been denied to the customers of most of the
restaurants, cheap and costly. Sugar has been served in infinitesimal
quantities, and for the last two weeks all diners in pubic eating places have
seen compelled to carry their own sugar or do without. There is plenty of fish.
One can get oysters. Fruit is almost prohibitive in price. Meat is, indeed, a
luxury, but obtainable in meagre portions at all be the cheaper places. Cream
has been tabooed for months. Milk comes in meagre quantities, and in most places,
not at all.
Parks Used to Raise Feed
Great Britain is truly enough feeling
the pinch of war, and there is no likelihood of any marked improvement.
Fortunately vegetables are to be had in abundance, and the prospect is that the
supply will be ample until the spring crop appears, when it will be more than
ample. Hardly a tillable square yard of land in England is idle. Golf links
have been plowed up. Large areas in the pubic parks all over the country have
been given over to the raising of produce.
Carriage horses have been sentenced to
death. The Food Controller says they are unnecessary. The foodstuffs required
for their sustenance is to be used for animals in the essential trade of the
country. The carcasses will be used for food. Regulations for the sale of horse
meat have been devised so that no one will eat horse without knowing it. The
bulk of the population objects to the flesh of horses, although the authorities
have assured them that it is as palatable and as nutritious as beef.
All Classes to Obey Rules
London and the other cities have
approached their food crises with customary British resignation and
resoluteness. The working classes are the most vociferous objectors, but most
of them assert they will take things as they are if no favoritism is shown.
They have made it quite clear that they will expect the royal family, the Prime
Minister and the members of the Lords and Commons to get along with precisely
the same rations as the man who works for a few shillings a week. And the amity
of the nation has been assured for the time being by the declarations from the
men in government that no individual, no matter what his wealth or social
position, will have an ounce more than the humblest worker in the East End of
London.
For more than two weeks now the hotels
and restaurants have been operating under a rule from the Food Controller. The
provisions of the rule are as follows:--
Meatless breakfast every day and two
meatless days per week. (These restrictions began on January 25.)
Milk as a beverage is limited to
children under ten and to invalids.
Persons going to restaurants for meals
must take own sugar.
Meat at lunch and dinner is reduced
from 5 ounces uncooked to 3 ounces; 2-1/2 ounces of poultry or game is reckoned
as 1 ounce of meat.
The daily allowance of fat per head, including cooking, is 1-1/4 ounces.
An increase of 1 ounce in the bread
allowance for breakfast and dinner and a reduction of ½ ounce in the allowance
for tea.
Difficulties Are Great
Rationing a nation is a heroic task, and
Great Britain has had no end of difficulties in meeting it. The “queues” on
food lines, which extended daily from the entrances of thousands of butcher and
dairy shops, began some time ago to cause uneasiness to the authorities.
Incipient rioting frequently was started by persons who declared that those
with fat purses were able to get favors through the paying of extra prices.
There was no doubt truth in their allegations.
Threatening protests came from many
sections of London where women fainted after standing in food lines for three
to six hours. In may cases serous illness developed because of the rough
weather. There was food enough, as there is now, to supply the customers, but
the supplies could not be equitably distributed. Thus some dealers were
besieged and forced to close their shops, with hundreds of would-be buyers
empty handed, while other dealers had sufficient to sell extra supplies to
persons with plenty of money to spend.
From the congested quarters of London
came grumbling, which was, to say the least, disquieting to the government,
with the result that the rationing system to go into effect on February 25 was
adopted. Every one will have to do with a minimum quantity of foodstuffs of all
kinds, but the Food Controller asserts that there will be enough to keep the
wolf from every door and provide proper sustenance for children.
Situation Is Serious
Protests are expected from some of the
great manufacturing centres of Great Britain. There the workers insist that
they must have more than the allotted ration of red meat. To them the half
assurance has been given that the beef situation is quite likely to improve,
that the methods of handling the beef supplies will without question be
bettered and that it may be possible for the wage earner to get more than is
now provided.
Since my last despatch cabled to the
Herald relative to food there has been a substantial change in the situation
here. There is nothing to be gained by understating the seriousness of the
problem at this time. It is serious, but there need be no cause for alarm if
the people of Great Britain are willing to put up with half the hardships
Germany took upon herself as early as 1916—hardships which there have been
growing constantly heavier.
Despatches from America saying that the
people of that country of wealth and (normally) of a superabundance are making
sacrifices, are accepting meatless and wheatless days even without legislation,
and are ready to make still greater sacrifices in order that the people of all
the allied nations may have food enough to keep real hunger away undoubtedly
have caused a more optimistic atmosphere among the people of this country.
U-Boat Statement Cheering
Likewise, the recent statement of the
Admiralty that the submarine menace has been partly overcome has had a
brightening effect upon the public mind.
The people believe there is food enough in the world if vessels can be
found to transport it, and they naturally look with new hope upon any official
statement indicating a check in submarine activity.
And a sad story about a youngster’s
suicide.
Precocious
British Lad Kills Himself Over Alleged Theft
Boy
Declared Chemistry To Be His Life’s Sole Desire and Happiness
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
Few cases of suicide in recent years
have attracted as much attention as that of Master Arthur Easterbrook,
precocious son of a retired colonel in the British army. The youngster killed
himself with cyanide of potassium. He had been experimenting in chemistry, to
which he was devoted. He presumably was driven to his act by the discovery that
he had taken some chemical apparatus from his school to his home. Although he
had merely borrowed it, there was an insinuation that he was guilty of theft. A
letter left by the boy is as follows:--
“To
whomever shall find this:--
“To-day will be my last day on this
planet. I cannot stand the prospects of what is coming, so goodby, chemistry,
my life’s sole desire and happiness. What will happen afterward I cannot tell,
but I hope that my spirit will travel to another planet and a God will forgive
and let me have another chance.
“Since New Year I have not touched
anything, and just as I thought that the whole unhappy business was over this
happens and utterly ruins my life. And I hope the verdict will not be ‘temporarily
insane,’ because I am not.
“A last word. I should like my stuff
that does not belong to the school to be given to F. W. Teare, in my form 4A at
school. It will help him on in the work that I intended to follow.
“Goodby, mamma, the only friend I had,
and I also hope that Leslie Wilson will remember me. So, goodby, chemistry,
that I love and adore and die for.
“P. S.—God save my soul.”
His father asked the authorities for
permission to preserve the letter, but the Coroner said:--
“I think it much better if you do not
have such a tragic document.”
And for a final
mailed article dated February 15 that was published on March 3, Don Martin put on a theater critic hat. It is
easy to see that he was an avid and critical theatergoer in New York City and
was enjoying continuing that in London.
“Nothing
But the Truth” and Six Other American Plays Please London
“Cheating
Cheaters,” “Lilac Domino” and “The Thirteenth Chair” Playing to Crowded Houses
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street,
London, Feb. 15.
Seven American plays are being
presented in London and all are successes. “Nothing
But The Truth,” which William Collier made famous, figuratively has London
standing on its head. Literally it is splitting the sides of the British
theatergoers. It was produced on February 5 and the following day the London
newspapers hailed it as the “funniest play seen in London in many years.” The critic of the Manchester Guardian alone
sounded a minor note, when he said the play no doubt would please Americans as
it deals with dollars.
A. E. Matthews, as the broker who won
$10,000 by telling nothing but the truth for twenty-four hours, has quickly
made himself one3 of the idols of the London playgoers. The entire cast is
quite as good as that with which Mr. Collier surrounded himself in New York.
The actors have caught the American spirit, and the Londoners who are flocking
to the Savoy are welcoming the play as one of the best ever seen in the British
capital and as proof that American humor cannot be excelled. Gilbert Miller,
son of Henry Miller, is manager of the theatre.
“Cheating
Cheaters” has found a warm place also in the estimation of London. The
Strand Theatre, where it had its initial performance, and where it is still drawing
crowded houses, and the play, with its startling surprises and its succession
of climaxes, sends the audiences away with new feelings for the American
“crook” play. Miss Shirley Kellogg, an American who has been a vaudeville
favorite in London for several years, made her debut in legitimate drama to
play the part of the arch crook, the society belle and the reporter detective,
all in one. Sam Livery, as the tough, is the hardest working actor on the
London stage and plays the gunman crook in excellent fashion.
From all the critics come praise for
the “Little Brother,” the scenes of
which are laid in Russia and New York. It is a Jewish play, and is described by
the writers here as one of the best serious dramas seen in London this season.
It was produced at the Ambassadors’ Theatre, where, like the other American
plays, it is having a marked success.
“The
Lilac Domino” is running at the Empire. It has been received well. The
other American plays which continue their sway at the various theatres are “The Thirteenth Chair,” at the Duke of
York’s Theatre; “Romance,” at the
Lyric, and “Inside the Lines,” at the
Apollo.
As a result of the American invasion of
the London theatrical world the British capital in spots is almost like
Broadway and Forty-fifth street. Many
figures well known to the stage in New York are to be seen daily and nightly
around the various hotels. Prices at the London box offices are slightly higher
than in New York, but the theatres, with a few exceptions, are crowded at every
performance.
After seeing “Inside the Lines” one can understand why many Britishers
think the average American business man wears diamond studs, and talks like a
longshoreman, and why they think American women are merely well-dressed
dairymaids.
The play revolves around an American
buyer for Hildebrandt’s department store, who, in war time, is trying to get
back to New York with a trunkful of Parisian dress models. She has lost her
passport. Other figures are a wealthy resident of Kewanee, Ill., who longs for
the scent of the Wabash, and thinks Notre Dame and St. Paul’s are reasonably
large but no more beautiful than the Masonic Temple back home. This part is
played b y a man with a Cockney accent, who talks like a plantation owner from
Yazoo City, Miss. The actor apparently thinks Kewanee is populated by
Southerners. As for the other characters, it is a waste of space to mention
them. Most of them are supposed to represent Americans, but nothing like them
was ever seen off the British stage.
The Hildebrandt department store buyer
is unique. She is neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. It is as if an
American playwright had portrayed as typical of English femininity a barmaid
from one of the small seaport towns in England. Still London likes the play. It
is the story of a spy. It is by Earl Derr Biggers, an American—who, however, is
probably not responsible for the caricature the play has been twisted into—and
has been playing to full houses for months. It is by long odds one of the worst
plays in London, and probably would not live on Broadway for more than half a
performance.
“Carminetta” is one of the prettiest
musical plays seen in London in years. It has had its two hundredth performance
at the Princess. Mlle. Delysia, the star of the cast, is a remarkable artist.
She sings splendidly, and is an actress of great ability. She comes from Paris,
is having her first taste of London popularity, and is ambitious to go to New
York.
The recent announcements regarding the
Haymarket appear to have created some misapprehension about the future of this
historic house. There is no likelihood of a change of bill there in the near
future. On the contrary, “General Post” will continue on its successful career
indefinitely. On Thursday, March 14, it will enter upon its second year. It is now being played ten times a week—four
matinees and six evening performance.
In
the New York Herald March 10, 1918 edition, once again among the February 15 dispatches there was a Sidelights, a series of
touching stories about the happenings to the American soldiers and sailors in
their stays in Great Britain. He had developed his recurring themes of pride in
American troops and the care extended to them.
American Survivors of the Tuscania Are Eager to “Go Over
and Get at Them”
Sojourners
in the Soldiers’ Camp Return to London and Tell How the Young Men, Despite the
Misadventure Are in High Spirits
[Special to the Herald]
Herald
Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Feb 15
Dr.
J. L. Tait, of Columbus, Ohio, who went to a certain military camp “somewhere
in England” where several hundred of the American soldiers who were on the
Tuscania were temporarily billeted, said he was surprised to find such a
cheerful lot of young fellows. They were clad in all sorts of nondescript
clothing—one, an officer, in an old uniform of the Scots Guards very much out
of date, picked up where he had no idea. After the camp fire service which he
conducted in the evening he said:--“Boys, after your terrible experience, do
the terrors of war discourage you?” With one voice they roared out, “No!” and
“We want to go over and get at them.”
*
* *
Mr.
W. E. Williams, who came over recently from America to join the Y. M. C. A.,
also has returned to headquarters in London after being at the same camp, where
he heard many harrowing stories of their hardships at sea after the Tuscania
went down. Driving in an almost unmanageable open boat through the dark and
stormy water, with the rain lashing down upon them, they found themselves
nearing a savage looking rocky coast, rising several hundred feet above them.
Unable to control the boat, with the surf breaking over them, they expected any
moment to be dashed to pieces upon the shore and drowned; but by a strange
circumstance the boat was carried right through a narrow cleft in the rocks and
grounded on soft shingle. “Surely,” said one of the boys, “God answered our
prayers that night.” When dawn came the islanders, both men and women, guided
them up the rocks, climbing most of the time, took them to their cabins, where
cheery peat fires were blazing, ministered to their wants and turned over their
beds to them. “This first experience of Scottish hospitality” said Mr.
Williams, “made a deep impression on our soldiers. Some of them, I fear, have
left their hearts behind them on that remote little island.”
*
* *
Mr.
Williams noticed during his stay at the camp one young American writing a
letter to a “Miss Annie Macdonald.” “Why,” he said, “have you lost your heart
to one of the fair islanders? Are the Scotch girls better than the girls back
home?” “No”, the young soldier replied, blushing, “there’re not that; but those
red cheeks get you; you can’t get away from them.”
*
* *
“These boys,” said Mr. Williams, “are
going to fight very differently from the spirit they started from home. The
sinking of the Tuscania and the perishing of some of their comrades has done
that. The iron has entered into their souls. They are determined to take blood
for blood.”
*
* *
A little Irish soldier—quite a little
man—came smiling to “Mother’s Corner” in the Eagle Hut the other day and asked
Mrs. Tait to sew a three year’s service chevron on his coat. He had “done his
bit,” and after three year’s absence from Ireland was going home to marry the
little colleen with whom he used to play in babyhood, and with whom he used to
go to the village school. Loyal little Pat!
*
* *
The work of the Y. M. C. A. is
increasing so enormously with the continuous arrival of troops in England that
Mr. R. L Ewing, general manager in Great Britain, has cabled for more
secretaries, as many as can possibly be sent from America, and the heads of the
organization are arranging to extend their work on a much greater scale than at
present. More huts and still more huts must be erected near the camps where the
American solders are located.
*
* *
It is well known that the number of
American aviators, both in the Royal Naval Flying Corps and in the army
aviation service who are stationed at English airdromes is increasing every
day. The number of Americans, however, has not been sufficient hitherto to
warrant the American Y. M.C. A. erecting a special hut at each of these English
airdromes, but the association has detailed a staff of men, each one of whom
has a circuit of certain camps to inspect regularly.
*
* *
The soldiers and sailors who come in
their hundreds to the Eagle Hut every evening for entertainment always are sure
of something good. The other evening, for instance, they heard Miss Violet
Loraine, one of the best of London’s comic opera stars, sing some of her best
songs; Miss Margel Gluck, formerly a soloist in Sousa’s band; Jock Walker, the
Scottish comedian, and Mme. Hortense Paulsen, a favorite singer at the Royal
Albert and Queen’s halls. In fact, the best entertainers are glad to appear at
the Eagle Hut, where they are sure of a most enthusiastic audience.
About once a week, too, Mrs. Waldorf
Astor goes to the Eagle Hut and has a talk with the men. Mrs. Astor has a “way
with her” which appeals to the boys; she is always welcome and knows how to
talk to them to their advantage.
*
* *
There is a young American soldier here
who when he goes home will be able to boast that he was educated in England—not
at Oxford or Cambridge University, but in a Y. M. C. A. hut. He was a bright,
intelligent young man, though his education had been sadly neglected. But he was
taken in hand, taught reading, writing
and arithmetic, and so apt a pupil was he that now he is able to write letters
home.
*
* *
American mothers need have little fear
of their boys who have left their homes to fight the battle of freedom in Europe.
Not only are they well cared for by the Y. M. C. A., but there are individual
instances of kindness on the part of English women which shows their sympathy
with these boys. An English woman working in a camp “somewhere in England” who
had lost her own son in the war discovered a young American orphan boy, to whom
she took a fancy. She practically adopted him. He is now at the front, and
writes to his new “mother” regularly.
Another February 15 article published on March 10 was a nice story about the British King.
Strict Economy in Food Observed by British King
[Special to the Herald]
Herald
Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Feb 15
The wage earning people of London were
much interested recently in reading a formal statement from the Master of the
King’s household to the effect that the royal family is living up rigidly to
the food regulations, and that, as a matter of fact, members of the King’s
household have stood in ‘queues’ to buy food just as the more ordinary folk
have done. The London Express published an interview with Sir Darek Keppel, who
is officially Royal Housekeeper. The interview was as follows:--
“We are all in line here with the
rations, and I am saying no more than what is true when I tell you that I never
knew any people so thoroughly conscientious in this matter as the King and
Queen. They are simply wonderful and accept the restrictions with most
noticeable cheerfulness, taking real pleasure in bearing their share of the
food hardships.
“It may surprise some to know that
quite often the royal larder has been found to be empty of such commodities as
butter, tea and margarine, and it has been found necessary to go without. I
should not be surprised if some of the servants have actually stood in the
margarine queues. Of this be certain, the royal table suffers in common with
the servants’ hall.
“All along the King and Queen have
anticipated restrictions getting the household in training, so to speak, for
what was coming. For example, it is long since coal economy was introduced to
Buckingham Palace. Waste of fuel or food constitutes a grave offense among the
servants of the King.”
And finally, there is a bylined article by Don Martin dated ‘Friday’ from London. It was
not cabled, as it was published in the New York Herald on Saturday, March 16,
when he was in Paris. It might have been sent a month earlier, on Friday,
February 15. However,there is no mention in his diary of having seen the Queen at this event.
QUEEN SEES
GIFTS OF IRISH-AMERIAN GIRLS TO SOLDIERS
British Royalty
Assists Lady Limerick in Bestowing War Comforts.
By DON MARTIN
[Special
to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130
Fleet Street, London, Friday
Only the soldiers and seamen themselves
whose wants were ministered by Queen Alexandra and her daughter Princess
Victoria, at Lady Limerick’s buffet in London Bridge Station could describe the
joy they experienced in being served by the “Queen mother” and the gentle
Princess during the two hours they worked alongside Lady Limerick’s staff
behind the buffet bar, and distributing the gifts sent to the British soldiers
and seamen by the Irish-American girls of New York.
Queen Alexandra was deeply
interested in Lady limerick's story of
how the gifts of jerseys, neck comforters, socks, warm wristlets and
other comforts were sent to England, a story which she narrated to the HERALD while sitting in a corner of the buffet in a
fragrant atmosphere of freshly made coffee, while the boys from the front and
the seamen just arrived from the North Sea or on their way back to rejoin their
ships, enjoyed the good things served to them.
“The story,” said Lady Limerick, her soft,
inimitable Irish brogue, a brogue impossible to reproduce in cold print, “goes
a long way back. When I was a very little girl in my Irish home I used to look
over the rolling billows of the great Atlantic and wonder where the waves came
from, and my father told us that they came rolling and rolling over the ocean
from the great country of America, where many of my ancestors had gone to live.
And I wished that I could go across that great sea and be with them. And my
nurses said to me, “Och! ye’ll never get there till ye’re blind.”
Finally She Sees America
“And I never thought I would. I never
thought to see the country where any of my family would become American
citizens. I mean the grandchildren of Mr. Anthony Brady. Perhaps I never should
have gone had it not been for this terrible war. I had been working hard, and I
thought I would like to go to America just for a rest. I went just a year ago, but never worked harder in
my life.
“Mr. Haley Fiske, of the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company, asked me to address a meeting of Irish girls in the hall of
the building. I never had addressed an audience in my life, but I agreed.
“I did not sympathize with the South
African war, but his was a war of liberation and justice. I told the girls
that. I told them what the English soldiers were doing for them. I told them
about one morning I went down to Wellington Barracks, and as I was standing
there one of the Irish Guards came up to me and said they were going off to the
front.
“When we come back,” he said, “we will
bring back a name that you’ll be proud of. We went to Westminster Cathedral
this morning, where we received holy communion. We are well with our God. A
soldier’s death is not one to be ashamed of, and we don’t mind if we are
called.”
“I told that to the Irish girls in New
York. I told them what the Irish Guard had done, one of the most glorious
stories of the war. I thought they would have gone mad between their cheers and
their tears, and they said they wanted to save up their money each week to send
comforts to the soldiers in France.
Irish Girls Kept Their Word
“They kept their word. Three times they
have sent over these comforts which they have worked with their own brave
hands. Once, unfortunately, they went to the bottom in a ship that was sunk by
a German torpedo. The last consignment, which we have got now, consists of more
than 5,000 articles of various sorts, as comforts for the boys in the trenches.
“Queen Alexandra was deeply moved at
seeing these jerseys, and cravats and socks, and other things, and said: ‘I
think it is very touching, and have never seen such beautiful work. I have a
very warm affection for these American girls,’ her Majesty added.
“Then she took one of the jerseys, and
singling out a poor young fellow standing at the buffet, handed it to him. Then
seeing that he looked very feeble and tired the Queen asked him. ‘Won’t you
come in and sit down? You know you ought not to have come out of the hospital
so soon.’ And the soldier brightened up and said ‘Your Majesty’s words will go
back to Canada with me. It was worth it all to have come here, worth any
sacrifice to be spoken to like this, and get an American girl’s present from
Queen Alexandra.””
Distributing more of the gifts from
America, and speaking such kindly words to the soldiers and seamen, the Queen
and the Princess worked hard handing over cups of coffee and buns to the
humble, gallant guests.
“The Queen just loved it all,” said Lady
Limerick. “She will be back again soon.”
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