Читать книгу "Over There" and Over Here - Richard MacAlpine - Страница 3

By the time November 1, 1916 rolled around, the Great War in Europe had been going on for over two years. 1916 had witnessed the devastating battles of Verdun (300,000 dead), the Somme in France (310,000 dead), and the naval battle of Jutland (10,000 dead.) As the casualties increased along the Western Front in France and Belgium, the war settled into a stalemate of trench warfare. This editorial appeared in the Yates County Chronicle in late summer: “THE EUROPEAN WAR - The war news from Europe tells of terrific fighting on all sides. The long-expected offensive movement of the Allies in the west has been begun in a terrific drive made all along the English and French fronts. The toll of lives has been awful, and the result is not yet certain.” Local papers ran articles on the war, but there was far greater interest in events along our southern border.

A revolution which began in Mexico in 1910 created tension between that country and the U.S. which resulted in the stationing of American troops along the southern border. It reached crisis proportions in March of 1916 when Mexican bandit Pancho Villa crossed the border with over 500 men and raided a town in New Mexico. Shortly after that, this editorial appeared in the Yates County Chronicle: “Time Has Come To Act - The time has come to act in regard to Mexico. There is no longer the slightest semblance of reason for waiting. The die is cast and we must move swiftly. The territory of the United States has been invaded, our citizens have been murdered in cold blood and every one of our rights have been trampled upon. It matters not whether this is the work of bandits or of the trained troops of another government, it must be punished, and swiftly. If we do not bring these murderers to bay, we will stand pilloried in the eyes of the world as miserable cowards - and we are not cowards.” With outrage like that across the country, President Wilson called on General John Pershing to mount a punitive expedition in pursuit of Villa and his men. Pershing’s expedition crossed the border and invaded northern Mexico. There was a Penn Yan man in Pershing’s army, Lieutenant John Conklin, and local papers followed him through letters written home to his parents. Although skirmishes involving the American army ended that summer, our troops were still on patrol in northern Mexico until a diplomatic settlement was reached in early 1917.

Going into the last two months of 1916, people locally were confidant that the war in Europe would not affect the United States. Although German U-Boats had sunk American ships through 1915 and into the early part of 1916, President Wilson, in an attempt to protect our neutrality, protested to the German Kaiser and threatened to break off diplomatic relations. The Kaiser, fearing American entrance into the war, signed what became known as the Sussex Pledge which suspended unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic. There was a general feeling that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were enough to protect us from foreign wars. There were reminders, however, that the President was following a policy of “Preparedness,” with small increases in the size of our army and navy. The papers reported an occasional troop train going through Penn Yan on the way to training camps. With all that, Wilson ran for re-election in 1916 on the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War.” He had a formidable opponent, popular New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes.

The election went as one would expect for Yates County. Hughes, the Republican, beat Wilson 2954 to 1661 in the county but he carried his home state of New York. Wilson, however, racked up a solid victory in the Electoral College, 277 to 254, and won a second term. Democrats celebrated by holding a torchlight victory parade through downtown Penn Yan election night. Miserable weather from a snowstorm the night before kept numbers down, but it was a hearty celebration nonetheless. The parade included the Penn Yan Band, a large American flag, an Uncle Sam in costume, and several automobiles including two filled with suffragettes. Local suffrage leaders had been present at the polling places to hand out leaflets to male voters. It reminded them that Yates was the first county in New York to finish a suffrage enrollment of women - 3000 women in the county signed up. It also reminded male voters that a statewide women’s suffrage amendment would be on the ballot in November of 1917.

The big story locally was the opening that fall of Merrill Beach’s Rolling Palace on Champlin Avenue in Penn Yan. Beach was the Ford dealer in town and had big plans for his huge building. He planned to have it used at times as a showplace for his cars and trucks - It could hold fifty of them. It could be used for concerts and community events - holding as many as two thousand people. It would be used for roller skating and had what was billed as “one of the best basket ball courts in this section of the country.” That was especially exciting to the community, because Penn Yan had one of the great town basket ball (two words in those days!) teams in the state, the Penn Yan Imperials who changed their name to Beach’s Imperials. They played in the Palace every Friday evening through the winter. When they beat Geneva in the first game 37-16, the Penn Yan Democrat called them “the most formidable array of basket ball players ever seen here.” On the last Friday of the year, they played a barnstorming team of college players from Chicago. The Imperials beat them 36-14. The Democrat reported: “The visitors looked for easy pickings in Penn Yan because of its being such a small place, but they soon discovered what an awful mistake they had made.”

In one of the last issues of the Yates County Chronicle in 1916, it was announced that the W.H. Long Post of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R. - Civil War veterans) disbanded. With over a hundred members at one time, the membership had dwindled to nine. The paper reported: “Some of the historically valuable effects of the disbanded post including the uniform and arms of William H. Long, for whom the post was named, and several documents it is proposed to place in the historical room of the Penn Yan Public Library.” It was a sign of the times. As the number of veterans of one major war was rapidly declining, we were only four months away from entering the Great War in Europe and creating an entirely new group of wartime veterans.