USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 9
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After the meeting, the crowd broke up quietly. As it was Saturday, pay day, the strikers returned to the plant individually or in small groups to pick up their envelopes. Prayers for the quick settlement of the dispute were offered in the Sunday serv- ices of most churches the next day.
On the following day, Labor Day, there was an even bigger parade and a field day, organized by the Central Labor Union Council. With American flags flying and bands playing, with many floats in the procession, thousands of workers with their families and friends marched through the main streets and then to Hick's Grove for a picnic, speeches, and an afternoon of sports.
With the General Electric works being picketed, Mayor Faulkner brought in some State police and some Metropolitan Police from Boston, about forty in all, "to help maintain order around the plant." As there had been no disorder except for a few personal clashes, the Mayor's action was roundly criticized, most sharply by many who were not parties to the dispute, and the outside police were withdrawn a week later.
To counter union attempts at organization, a number of larger Berkshire manufacturers met in Pittsfield and organized an Employers' Association, choosing as its first president Cum- mings C. Chesney, head of the struck General Electric plant. Its first aim, the Association proclaimed, was "to defend the American principle of the Open Shop." To that end, it would establish an employment agency where "deserving and efficient" workers might find jobs, but no union members need apply.
After the strike had continued a month, a settlement was effected through the State Board of Conciliation and Arbitra- tion. The strikers accepted the General Electric's original offer. The only point they won was that in rehiring, strikers were not
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to be discriminated against. The spinners, too, went back to work in the woolen mills on their old terms. Two months later, General Electric announced a 10 per cent bonus to all em- ployees making less than $2,500 a year. At the same time, the Rice silk mills and other local companies granted bonus pay- ments. For several years the industrial front remained quiet as public attention turned to other affairs.
Great issues were involved in the national elections of 1916. Resigning from the United States Supreme Court, Charles Evans Hughes had been named as the Republican presidential candidate. The Democrats renominated President Woodrow Wilson. It was a cruel and bitterly fought campaign, and many in Pittsfield took an interest more personal than usual in the candidates.
Hughes' father, a Baptist minister in up-state New York, had preached in Pittsfield many times and was well remembered. During the campaign, the city got a peek at Hughes in the flesh when his train stopped briefly in the station one night and the sleepy candidate came to the rear platform to take a bow, "in pajamas and a raincoat."
Pittsfield's interest in President Wilson had a romantic touch. After his first wife's death in 1914 it had seemed for a time that a Pittsfield woman would succeed her as the First Lady of the Land-Mrs. Mary Hulbert Peck, a charming woman in her early fifties, divorced wife of the city's prominent textile manu- facturer, Thomas D. Peck. Mrs. Peck had long been a friend of the Wilsons, often visiting them. After his wife's death, the President became more friendly, frequently writing her in- timate letters with "affectionate regards." Mrs. Peck later re- called saving lace for the costume she planned to wear at her anticipated wedding in the White House.
The romance aroused much whispering from coast to coast and occasioned considerable political turmoil in the inner Wil- son circles when the President, with the 1916 campaign ap- proaching, announced his intention of marrying another woman, a widow, Mrs. Norman Galt.
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Mrs. Peck and her friends in Pittsfield, Washington, and elsewhere were not pleased. But Mrs. Peck resisted the deter- mined efforts made during the campaign to have her release the "affectionate" letters to serve low partisan purpose. She later declared that she had been offered $300,000 for release of the letters. On the other hand, it was charged-falsely, it seems -that she had been paid $75,000 by Wilson's friends to keep the embarrassing letters secret.
Pittsfield had another personal interest in the Wilson admin- istration. One of the abler and stronger members of the Cab- inet had grown up in the city, being a graduate of the high school, and was well remembered-William Cox Redfield, Secretary of Commerce from 1913 to 1919. In his younger days, Redfield had worked for a time in the local post office.
On election day, the neighboring Berkshire town of New Ashford, the smallest incorporated town in the state in popu- lation (92) and one of the smallest in area, made national and international headlines for the first time. By ten in the morning, leading the country, it reported the complete returns on its presidential balloting-16 votes for Hughes, 7 for Wilson- front-page news around the world, flashed from Pittsfield by the editors of the Eagle who had been instrumental in staging the coup.
Always eager to gaze into the crystal ball and report their visions, professional politicians in both parties used New Ash- ford to shout confident predictions. The results there, said some, clearly portended an overwhelming Republican landslide. On the contrary, said others, they unmistakably indicated an invin- cible Democratic upsurge, for New Ashford had never cast such a large proportion of Democratic votes since the Civil War, or before.
Pittsfield, Berkshire County, and Massachusetts all followed New Ashford in giving Hughes a majority, though by much smaller margins. The day after election it appeared that Hughes had won. The result remained in doubt until two days later when the final returns came in from California, revealing that the Democrats had carried that state by less than 4,000 votes,
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but sufficient to assure the President's reelection by a narrow margin of electoral votes.
The Wilson campaign had been waged and won on the slogan, "He kept us out of war." After the election, however, it soon became evident that American policy was hardening toward Germany and its allies, especially after their resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare which took a mounting toll of American lives and ships, including the U.S.S. Housatonic, a merchantman carrying grain to London.
At a special session of the Congress on April 2, 1917, the President called for a declaration of war, denouncing German submarine policy as "warfare against mankind," declaring in a phrase that later took an ironic tone, "The world must be made safe for democracy." The United States formally declared war on Germany four days later, subsequently breaking with her allies.
Pittsfield was ready for the emergency, spurred on by many patriotic meetings, speeches, and sermons. Anticipating devel- opments, Mayor Moulton had appointed a Committee on Pub- lic Safety, with Arthur W. Eaton as president of its Executive Committee, W. D. Wyman as vice president, and City Clerk Miller D. Steever as secretary.
As the very first measure of safety and security, howled cer- tain super-patriots, stronger of voice than of mind, the city should forever ban the teaching of German in the schools. No German books were to be read either in the original or in translation. Even some of the more sensible went along for a time with the nonsense of calling sauerkraut "Liberty cab- bage."
But Pittsfield, for the most part, kept its balance and did not give way to hysteria or blind rage, though there were a few unpleasant incidents in the schools when the children of Ger- man parents were set upon by other children. Quick action by the press, the teachers, the clergy, and decent people generally soon put a stop to this.
Functioning efficiently and with purpose, the Public Safety Committee directed and coordinated the activities of dozens of
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other committees working on special projects. The committee joined with the mayor in urging everybody to plant a home veg- etable plot-"a war garden"-for almost anything might hap- pen. A Home Guard of sixty men was organized, with 300 in reserve. In want of rifles, the Guard did its exercises for months with sticks and wooden guns. The Berkshire County Red Cross Ambulance Corps 13 had been formed and was in training, with Pittsfield as its headquarters.
Responding to the call for greatly increased enlistments, many younger men in the city-and many older ones, too- volunteered for service in the Army, Navy, or Marines. In one day alone, fifty-two men enlisted in the Army, and twelve in the Navy. On March 31, even before war was declared, Com- pany F, as part of the 2nd Regiment of the Massachusetts National Guard, had been mustered into Federal service.
"Put your flags out!" blazoned the Eagle and the whole city responded as the men of Company F, pushing through excited crowds, assembled in the Armory to be assigned to new duties. They were soon detailed to action-or inaction-"somewhere in Massachusetts." Their whereabouts was supposed to be a deep military secret, a matter of national security. But as mem- bers of the company were in town almost every day on leave or on military business, everybody knew where they were. They were guarding the rail lines east of Pittsfield, being bored stiff for weeks there until they were brought back to the Armory to prepare for more serious business.
On July 5, under orders to report at camp in Greenfield, Company F marched through the streets to the railroad station, 144 strong, honored with such ceremony and public demonstra- tion as had not been seen since 1861 when the Allen Guard departed for the Civil War. Singing "Onward Christian Sol- diers," a large parade escorted "Pittsfield's own" to the train. It was considered noteworthy that there was "no speech-mak- ing," doubtless to the soldiers' great relief. The young get easily bored with their elders' oratory and stentorian calls to fight.
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To learn how the men of Company F were faring, a special citizens committee visited them at their camp on the fair grounds at Greenfield, carrying for each soldier a package of chewing gum and four packs of cigarettes. When the Eagle had started a campaign to help keep the soldiers in tobacco and a few extras, some raised strong "moral" objections against the sin of supplying them with the "filthy weed," especially in the form of cigarettes-"coffin nails!" But this bothered only a few. In Company F there were only ten non-smokers, and these had no "moral" or other objections to having their buddies smoke, or chew.
Company F, the visiting committee discovered, was short of many things-tents, blankets, cots, service shoes, hats, and proper-fitting uniforms. But the food was good, served in style on the Company's own chinaware brought from the Armory. The boys told the committee they were now hoping to have oil- cloth on the tables. An old cement watering trough served as wash basin and laundry tub. With Yankee ingenuity, they had rigged up a hot shower system with the help of an old whiskey barrel. As the soldiers had received their first pay just before the committee arrived, quite a few were not on hand to receive gifts and messages from home, having taken "French leave." But they "were expected back soon" for some exercise in the "bull pen" or the latrines.
Pittsfield and Company F suffered their first war fatality when First Lieutenant Charles H. Ingram took sick and died. The flags in the city flew at half-mast as he was buried from the First Methodist Church with military honors, his casket being escorted to the grave by four squads of Company F led by Captain Clogher.
After a month at Greenfield, the battalion there was moved to Westfield on August 7 to join the rest of the 2nd Massachu- setts Regiment. The latter soon became the 104th Infantry of the 26th Division, later famed as the "Yankee Division," com- manded by Major General Clarence R. Edwards, an 1883 grad- uate of West Point.
Company F at this time consisted of two officers and 118
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men from Pittsfield, two officers and 99 men from Haverhill and vicinity, and two officers and forty men from Camp Devens and the First Officers' Training Camp. With the reassignment of Captain Clogher, the company was commanded by Captain Thomas H. Ireland, formerly of Company H of the 6th Massa- chusetts Regiment.
On September 25, after little more than a month of active training at Westfield, the 104th Infantry pulled out of Camp Bartlett "for parts unknown." Pittsfield suspected that Com- pany F was on its way overseas, which was the case. Sailing from Montreal on H.M.S. Corsican, the units landed at Liver- pool on October 17, immediately proceeding to France, where they entered intensive training for three months at Harreville les Chanteurs, in the Haute Marne.
Previously, on August 29, in its first move toward the Euro- pean battlefronts, Ambulance Company 13 of the Berkshire County Red Cross left Pittsfield for Camp Devens, at Ayer, Massachusetts. Consisting of 119 men under Captain Robert J. Carpenter, a North Adams doctor, the unit entrained with twelve ambulances, a touring car, a supply car, and three motor- cycles. Of the $31,259 spent for its equipment, Pittsfield sub- scribed $7,106, with the Board of Trade contributing $1,800 and General Electric $800. At Camp Devens the unit became Ambulance Company 301, and was later commanded by Cap- tain Melvin H. Walker, a Pittsfield physician.
Meantime, on June 5, all men in the country aged twenty-one to thirty-one had registered under the new selective service law. In Pittsfield, 4,232 registered and were given numbers on the "draft" roll. The drawing of numbers began on July 20. The first number drawn was #258. On the Pittsfield register, this number was held by 29-year-old John McCullock, of Hancock. But as he had a wife and three children, he was not subject to call. The first Pittsfield man to be accepted for selective service was Randolph Troy, a General Electric engineer.
The city's first draft quota was 271 men. But the draft num- bers of 592 Pittsfield men were drawn, for Washington had estimated that at least 40 per cent in any draft group would
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fail in their physical examinations, that of the remainder at least half would have dependents and therefore be exempt under the law.
The vanguard of the selective service men, just three in all- Randolph Troy, Alexander Connors, and Charles E. Thompson -left on September 5 for Camp Devens after a cheering salute at City Hall. They were soon followed by a contingent of 108 men, and then by others till the quota was filled. Within six months of the declaration of war, Pittsfield had more than a thousand people in service, including twelve women.
The war began to pinch the home front severely and brought Pittsfield many public and private problems. Prices continued to soar, causing serious concern and mounting criticism of the administration. Many complained that the beer was no good, being literally just "suds," now that its alcoholic content had been cut as a war measure to 2.5 per cent. The making of whis- key and other hard liquor had been stopped for the duration. But as the distilleries had 270,000,000 gallons on hand, the only immediate effect was to raise the price of whiskey from a dime to 20 cents a glass.
As American advertising ballyhoo was just coming into its own with its "personal" approach, the country was plastered with patriotic posters, including the favorite in which a grim Uncle Sam was pointing a long finger at the beholder and saying, I want You! Or such admonitions as: Save the Wheat for Victory! ... Save Fuel to Fire the Kaiser!
Numerous local committees forwarded the national cam- paign to conserve food and fuel. People were requested-in- deed, virtually commanded-to eat less bread, meat, and sugar. Mondays and Wednesdays were "wheatless" days. Mondays were also "wetless," as the saloons were closed. Tuesdays and Fridays were "meatless," Saturdays "porkless," while every day was a fat-saving and sugar-saving day. As time went on, more and more wheat substitutes were baked into "victory" bread, cakes, and pastries.
Authorities in Washington, dealers in food, women's or- ganizations, and individual housewives published "tested"
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recipes for such strange delicacies as "corn flour sponge cake," "potato pudding," and "oatmeal betty." For two years, like the rest of the country, Pittsfield ate more rice, corn meal, porridge, bran, barley, and oats than ever before-or since. To wheatless, meatless, and what some called "eatless" days were now added others even harder to bear.
The winter of 1917-18 was a very severe one, the coldest in New England since 1894. It was a really rugged winter, down- right brutal, as old-timers well recall. It was probably the worst winter Pittsfield ever suffered, for to natural causes were added serious complications arising from the war.
Winter started early, in mid-December, and heavy snow and bitter cold continued without respite for months. On Decem- ber 15, 1917, the mercury in Pittsfield dropped to 22 degrees below and was slow in climbing up again. Very heavy snows followed. On December 31, the temperature plunged again, down to 35 degrees below-Hinsdale reported 42 below. The mercury seemed frozen in the tube, for at some time every day for the next ten days the thermometer registered zero or below, often far below.
A succession of blizzards then swept the Berkshires, bring- ing transportation in and around Pittsfield almost to a halt. With goods in short supply, the prices of most things, already very high from war-time inflation, went higher, arousing loud and angry outcries against "extortion."
As if this were not bad enough, there was an acute fuel shortage, a coal famine, caused by the war. Pittsfield was freez- ing, with almost everybody clamoring for coal and none to be had at any price. Fires went out in furnaces, stoves, and grates all over the city. Miles of pipe froze, creating serious water and sewage problems. On January 18, 1918, the author- ities closed the schools until further notice and put the city into the fuel business, taking coal out of the school bunkers and selling it in 100-pound lots to those most desperately in need of it.
Driven out of frosty houses, many families doubled up with relatives, friends, or neighbors lucky enough to have some
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"black diamonds" in the cellar. A number of Protestant churches combined their Sunday services. To add the spice of surprise, which minister would preach the next Sunday was not announced.
Someone suggested that wood would still burn and that before Pittsfield froze, it might be well to chop some. This sent a number of parties into the woods, public and private, for "some real lively wood-chopping." The exercise kept the men warm, though many complained, usually quite profanely, that logs had certainly grown harder and tougher since they were boys. The wood-chopping "bees" sent several to the hospital with "broken" backs and other ailments, and inspired a lively sale of Sloan's liniment and snake oil. But the wood put a little heat into many cold houses. The wonder was that more people were not seriously ill.
To complicate matters and compound Pittsfield's woes, the trolley system upon which almost everybody depended for trans- portation completely broke down, inspiring city-wide curses "loud and long, deep and fervent." The complaint was general that "we can't start anywhere, or get anywhere .. . The trolley service, notoriously bad, is the worst ever, with no relief in sight."
The trolley breakdown seemed almost like the last straw to many thousands of busy people who had to walk to and from work in the bitter cold and through heavy snow, some of them for miles. No trolley cars operated for days at a time, and when they did, only by fits and starts.
"It used to be news when a car was off the track," the press remarked. "Now it is news when one is on." On several occa- sions the Eagle had to deliver its papers to Dalton by sleigh. When a lone trolley occasionally crept down South Street, mothers in the houses along the way, so the story goes, would run to the window and cry, "Come quick, children, and see the street car."
The heavy weather had put too much of a strain on outworn equipment. The company's old cars went "lame" and were hard to repair because the war made it very difficult to get spare
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parts. Finally, the local General Electric plant helped out by bringing the cars into one of its new buildings, and repairing the motors on the spot.
As the coal situation got worse, the president of neighboring Williams College, Dr. Harry A. Garfield, was made Federal Fuel Administrator with power to take drastic measures to con- serve fuel and electric power. He immediately decreed that all factories and businesses east of the Mississippi, except those spe- cifically exempted, should save coal by closing down for five days, which made thousands of Pittsfield workers idle and cost them a week's pay.
Garfield then decreed that Mondays should be "heatless." All stores and offices should remain closed on that day. On other weekdays, they would open at nine and close at five, with no electric lights burning after that hour. Lights would go out in theatres, saloons, and such places at ten each evening. Pitts- field, as instructed, cut its street lighting to a minimum. Every night but Saturday night was "lightless" for the stores. With show windows dark and scarcely a light showing, North Street at night was a black and eerie canyon with little moving but the bitter winter wind as it whistled around the corners piling snow drifts higher.
Washington also announced that on April 1 all clocks would be moved forward an hour, the beginning of daylight saving time, which was introduced not to pleasure city folks, or discommode farmers, but as a fuel- and power-conserving measure.
On January 25, 1918, it appeared by official warning that all industries in New England might have to close down within a few days for want of coal. "Good weather is our only hope," and prayers went up to assure that.
Three days later, the heaviest blizzard of the winter hit the Northeast, tying up the railroads. Attempts to get coal to New England by water failed when the coal barges got stuck in Long Island and Vineyard sounds, blocked by great drifts of ice larg- er than had been seen for fifty years. With Pittsfield seriously talking of "grabbing" the next car of coal that came through,
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no matter what its destination, the thermometer took another steep plunge. On February 3, at noon, the temperature stood at 19 degrees below, a local record for the day. Things were be- ginning to assume the aspect of a nightmare.
But a few days later, to the city's immense relief, some soft coal began to come in. Pittsfield had always burned hard coal. But at the moment, anything that smoked seemed a fire. The high school was reopened, and the lower schools during the next few weeks. February 18 was the last "heatless" Mon- day .* More blizzards were bound Pittsfield's way, but the worst was over. It had been a long ordeal, and everybody was cer- tainly happy when "pussy willow" days came again in the spring of 1918.
But the spring was otherwise dark, overshadowed by grave news from the battlefields. The Eastern Front had collapsed; the Bolsheviks in control of Russia had signed a separate peace with the Germans. Concentrating her armies on the Western Front, Germany was smashing at the Allied and American lines, puncturing great holes in them. Growing casualty lists began to appear in our newspapers, with Pittsfield and all of Berkshire watching anxiously as their men went into action.
On February 6, Company F with the rest of the 104th In- fantry was ordered to the thundering Chemin des Dames sector and remained there till March 21, seeing nineteen days of front line duty, suffering one killed and four wounded. It had scarcely returned to rest camp when it was sent to the Toul- Boucq sector, where it remained from April 1 to June 29, serving twenty-four days of front line duty during which it had six men killed and twenty-five wounded. In the heavy fighting here the 104th Infantry so distinguished itself that it won the honor of being the first American regiment ever to have its colors decorated by the French government.
*Later, "gasless" Sundays were ordered. There was to be no driving for pleasure on that day. Motorists grumbled, but they constituted a small minority. The car-less majority was delighted. "We never enjoyed such a quiet Sunday as this last past," they declared. "It was heavenly." The ban on Sunday joy-riding had another marked effect-the churches were much better attended than usual.
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