USA > Wisconsin > Racine County > Racine county in the world war > Part 40
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RACINE COUNTY IN THE WORLD WAR
345
DANIEL HDEVITT
NOOD
PVT
CHARLES R.MANFULL
FREDERICK VANDRESEN
VICTOR A.MECKEL
SOT
CORP
Photos Loaned by Lt. Sanders
FOUR OFFICERS IN A BAD HOLE-HOLE MADE BY A GERMAN SHELL
The upper panel shows that 12tst Artillery band marching out on the parade ground at Camp Douglas. At that time the 12Ist was a National Guard organization. The center panel shows four officers of the regiment in a hole made by a Ger- man 150 mm shell in the Alsace sector. Lt. Sanders is at the right. On the lower panel again is pictured the trim and well-cared for graves of American soldiers who gave their lives for the cause in France.
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park with a little pond. For the moment, there are no suggestions of war. It seems a shame to walk around over these nice carpets with cur heavy hob-nailed shoes, but we all do it. The atmosphere over here slaps up a fellow's character into a different shape. With us, every part of the country, every large col- lege and many small ones, every creed, soci- ety, fraternity and kind of personality is rep- resented. It's a grand mixture with a fine re- sult. It's the best army that ever happened. When the thing is over, we are going to be better for it in every way except financially. But the army is not a money proposition. That's one of the nice things about it for we are going to think more of doing the joh right than of the recompense in cash thereof.
Clarence Baumstark, Sply. Co., 125 Inf., Army of Occupation, Jan. 22, 1919-We are located in a small village called Willworth, Germany, with the Army of Occupation, and are nicely situated in the houses with Ger- man people. They treat us real nice, consid- ering what we American soldiers are here for, and they give us some good eats. You know the good old German style Sauer Kraut and Speck. We are located about forty kilometers from Coblenz, and the boys are receiving pass- es daily to see the town. We have our Mess Hall in one of the Krupp Iron and Coal Mines, and we have very good accommodations for bathing-always steam heated. We have our Office in a Cafe, so we have to walk about one kilometer for our meals. I was on a visit to Coblenz one day last week, and believe me it is certainly some pretty place. I was on the top of the statue of Kaiser Wilhelm, and you could see many miles around on all four sides. The Moselle and the Rhine River con- nect right on the edge of this statue. The Y. M. C. A. has its headquarters in the Fest- halle, and every day they have a route they take the American soldiers around to see the many interesting historical sights of Coblenz, headed by four or five American girls, making it more enjoyable for the soldiers. We started on our famous "March to the Rhine" on No- vember 16th, and it surely was some trip. The boys endured many hardships but every- body landed here in good condition. Lots of rainy and muddy weather, and we climbed many high hills in France and Germany. We crossed the Rhine River on December 13th (Friday) at 10:45 A. M. at Engers, Germany. The landscape was very beautiful especially in Germany, and we saw many pretty sights along the way.
Sgt. John Estberg, A. E. F., Vladivostok,
Siberia, July 10, 1919-Very few Russians can read or write. Many of them appeared to us lazy and rough and they were certainly dirty. They are larger men than the Americans and I think they were inclined to be friendly to the Americans. An American cigarette would win them every time. They are great drinkers of tea and vodka. There was a great deal of drinking at Vladivostok, and much disorder and crime. Murders were of frequent occur- rence.
I did not hear of any instances of the Bol- shevik appropriation of property in Vladivo- stok. Of course Bolsheviki vary greatly in the radicalism of their opinions. Some of the peo- ple there think the czar is still living and oth- ers are sure he was shot.
Vladivostok is a city whose population is probably between 125,000 and 200,000. No- body knows how many people live there be- cause no census has been taken for twenty years. Two out of every five people there are Chinese, from Manchuria or Korea. The city lies on a long narrow peninsula jutting out into the sea and it has one street five miles long paved with cobblestones. No others have any paving. It is excessively dirty. There is no sewerage of any sort and no running water. Chinese coolies haul water from the munici- pal wells in buckets carried on sticks over their backs.
The buildings are generally of stone and very substantial. The barracks used by the Ameri- can soldiers were those used by the Russians during the Russian-Japanese war and had very thick walls. We had great trouble in getting coal and wood for fuel. Part of last winter a provision was in force that we might have a fire only twelve hours out of the twenty-four.
The business of the city is in the hands of Chinese and Japs. Few American goods are for sale although there is demand for them. Many of the goods sold are Japanese. The stores were mostly closed when we first got there in September, 1918, but opened up when supported by the presence of the allied troops. They carried stocks which seemed to me poor.
Most of the supplies for the army were shipped from the United States but some of our beef came from China. We had great dif- ficulty in getting potatoes and ate canned sweet potatoes much of the time.
Residents bought supplies at great markets with many small booths. Chinese and Japan- ese live largely on fish and all kinds of fish and other sea food could be purchased very cheap.
During the war Vladivostok had a cosmo-
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-
DUN-SUR-MEUSE, LONG TO BE A MEMORY FOR RACINE MEN
The side hill, with its ruins and concealments, was a little more battered and war-scarred by the time the 32nd Division reached it. Many other units in which were Racine men, passed through the wreckage on the way across the Meuse. The upper picture shows a big German gun wrecked by American gun-fire. The films from which both these pictures were made were taken from the dead body of a German soldier while our forces were pushing on toward Germany.
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politan population but there are no Americans resident there so far as I know. There are few English, only those connected with the government.
Sgt. Glenn Williams, 127 Amb. Co., Wal- ferdingen, Germany, Dec. 2, 1918-Am just starting to realize what a valuable trip this is which I am taking. Think of it, a trip through the beautiful cities of Europe and not costing a cent. People have spent thou- sands just to take this same trip. This cer- tainly is a swell war now. Arrived at our des- tination (Strasseau) at 6 p. m. Found every billet full of men so we had to put up to what we found out the next a. m. to be a pig pen. Quite some change from the paradise we had the night before. But we slept well-that was all we asked for. Were up and partook of a typical Luxemburg dinner, but Oh! Boy! what a pricc. Cost each one about. 22 francs ($4.50). Left this place and arrived at Wal- ferdingen (sometimes spelled Walferdange) just north of the city of Luxemburg, at 2 p. m. Here we established our kitchen in the center of a beautiful garden in the courtyard of the summer palace of the Grand Duchess of Lux- emburg. Nothing too good for us. Sergt. Coutu and I have a swell room in a private home. Of course the people are German but most of them speak French so we get along real well. Have visited the city of Luxemburg
twice and wish to say it is the prettiest city I have struck, almost as beautiful as Paris. But the prices are absolutely out of the reach of the soldiers. You may not believe it but we paid 18 francs ($3.50) for a bar of choco- late. But we have to have chocolate so bought some. Everything is extremely expensive.
Joseph Pottinger, France, Dec. 5, 1918-It seems funny to read your letters which were written before the war ended. We no more than saw France when the French fisherman yelled, "Le guerre finis," or the war is ended, though it really didn't end for a few days after. They were expecting it right along. 1 am quite contented to stay here until the time to leave for home. No other company has it any better than we do. We have a big stove in the barracks, which we made out of a steel drum that the Standard Oil Co. uses. It's a regular young furnace. We also have running water in the creek, and my bathtub is a corn beef can that holds about a gallon of water. The government issues chewing tobacco, stick candy and Bull Durham to us. We also have a canteen, where we can buy candy once in a while and smokes too. I am going to try to get to town so I can buy some souve- nirs and picture postcards. Everything is high over here. We are paid in French money and I received 62 franes and 50 centimes, or $11.50.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE SOLDIERS' RETURN; VETERANS' SOCIETIES
J UST as soldiers and sailors had left their homes in small groups, so they returned. Every train from north, south or west brought back men who were released from service in camp or on shipboard. The first "veterans" to return from "war" were the men who had entrained on the morning of Nov. 11, 1918, for camp, only to receive official notice of the signing of the armistice when they were en route barely an hour. They made the return trip from Waukegan, Ill., on the same train, and quietly dispersed to their homes.
Actual demobilization of the army and navy did not begin for a week or more after the armistice was signed, but as soon as definite word of the complete collapse of German mili- tary strength was received, the newer con- tingents were mustered out. By Christmas the great majority of soldiers and sailors at Ameri- can stations had been demobilized and others were hastening back from foreign shores.
Because of the way in which the men re- turned it was impossible for the community to do much in the way of extending a formal welcome. A public meeting was held at the Lakeside auditorium in -March, preceded by a parade of nearly a thousand returned service men, and addresses of welcome were given by public officials. A group of men and women had conceived the idea of having a clubhouse where service men could stay while on leave, and this was carried out, but not until Janu- ary, 1919. This Army and Navy club, as it was called, was maintained for more than a year in a roomy building at 610 Wisconsin street and here returning men could obtain rooms temporarily, and have free use of reading and writing rooms and pool tables. The city of Racine, through the common council, decided to present each service man with a bronze badge in recognition of his sacrifice, and these were issued by the city treasurer upon presen- tation of a certificate of honorable discharge.
The County Council of Defense presented a copy of suitable resolutions, reproduced upon vellum, to the families of men who had died in service, and the Red Cross provided black arm bands of mourning, bearing a gold star, to the mothers of those who had died.
The first opportunity that the community had to show the depth of its feelings toward the men who had rallied to the colors came with the return of the two batteries and the ambulance company. These three organiza- tions had been the first to leave for war and were the only strictly Racine units in the army. They had been away from home nearly two years, and many of the boys had made the supreme sacrifice, while scores of others had been wounded on foreign fields. They had been kept in France for six months after the end of hostilities, when the word finally came that the Thirty-second division was sailing from Brest.
The two batteries, C and F, arrived first. Mayor W. H. Armstrong, ex-Mayor T. W. Thiesen, Lt .- Col. Henry C. Baker and W. H. Reed, and others, went to Boston to meet them upon their arrival. The war depart- ment allowed no organizations excepting the First division (regulars) and the regiments from Chicago and New York to parade in home cities, and the batteries were ordered to Camp Grant, Ill., for mustering out after a few days spent at Camp Devens, Mass. Ar- riving at Camp Grant with the rest of the 57th Artillery brigade, they were mustered out on May 19, 1919. In accordance with the request of the mayor, the men stayed there until the following morning and then entrained with practically the entire 121st Field Artillery regiment, headed by Col. Westfahl and staff.
By 9 o'clock that morning everyone in Ra- cine was on the streets waiting to greet the returned heroes. Factories and offices were closed. Streets were a mass of bunting, flags and huge reproductions of the Thirty-second
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division insignia, the barred red arrow. At Sixth street and Grand avenue the city fire- men had erected an arch of extension lad- ders, upon which twenty firemen served as liv- ing adornments. Adjoining the city hall on Third street had been erected a great white arch, fifty feet high, spanning the pavement. Police, State Guards and Boy Scouts patrolled the streets to keep the crowds within bounds.
When the first of the two trains bearing the men reached Kenosha the mayor was noti- fied, and at his request every factory whistle in town started blowing and kept it up for more than an hour. The trains arrived at the Junction depot of the North-western railroad at about 10 o'clock, the first one bearing the regimental officers and two Green Bay Batter- ies. Hardly had they formed ranks on June- tion avenue when the second train, bearing the Racine boys, arrived, and as they stepped off the cars there started a cheer that swept on and on through the crowd clear to the cen- ter of town.
Headed by the regimental band, the 1,500 tanned and husky veterans swung onto Wash- ington avenne and with the long, swinging step that had carried them hundreds of miles in other and stranger climes, they started cn their last march of the war. Through streets jammed with men, women and children who cheered and wept by turns, they proceeded down Washington avenue to Sixth street and thence to Main.
Bells were ringing, toy cannons and fire- crackers roaring, whistles shrieking and above all there was the steady tidal wave of noise from the throats of thousand upon thousands of throats. The crowds kept back of the curb line fairly well while the Milwaukee and Green Bay batteries were passing, but it was impos- sible to maintain a line after the Racine out- fits struck Sixth street. Mothers, sisters, sweethearts, fathers and little brothers dashed into the ranks to kiss their returning war- riors, and clung to them as they proceeded toward the city hall. It was a riot of joyous welcome, which served to repay the soldiers for many of their hardships and discomforts.
Reaching the corner of Third street, the leading units kept on to State street and then turned west to the North-western depot, to continue their journey to their homes. Bat- teries C and F turned east under the arch, near which waited relatives who had received tickets entitling them to occupy the space re- served there.
No ceremony of dismissal was possible. A laughing, "Dismissed" from Major Rickeman,
and its repetition by Lieut. Herzog and Lieut. Guilbert, commanding the two batteries, served the purpose. The war was over at last!
There was a half hour of bustling back and forth to find relatives and friends, and a few minutes of shaking hands with a few hun- dred of the thousands who sought the privi- lege, and the boys hastened to their homes for a dinner of the sort that had been in their dreams for months and months.
The next morning there were visible on the streets a hundred or more of uniformed men who had found no civilian apparel awaiting their return. By night these had visited the stores and returned home with arms filled with bundles. One more day and the brown elad host had vanished from sight, apparently for- ever. Within a week almost every man in the batteries had returned to the work he had left so willingly in July, 1917. The uniforms had been packed away as "souvenirs la guerre."
Two weeks later the Ambulance company returned, and was given a similar welcome. Owing to a misunderstanding regarding the time of arrival the crowds on the streets were smaller but the greeting was none the less cordial. The ambulance company had landed at Newport News, where a committee met them, and then had gone to Camp Grant. From there they were brought to Racine in autos, and owing to the long trip the procession got pretty badly scattered. The cars were finally assembled near Corliss and the boys came into town in the middle of the supper hour. Be- ginning their march at the Junction, they fol- lowed the same route downtown and disbanded at the arch of welcome on Third street. The street decorations had been left in place, and all the noise making apparatus was again put into use. Once again Racine opened her arms to her returning sons and left no doubt in the minds of any as to the cordiality of her wel- come. Major Johnston was in command of the returning company, now about 125 strong.
The Batteries and the Ambulance company members were guests a few nights later of the Racine lodge of Elks at a magnificent banquet at the clubhouse on the lake shore at Sixth street. A hundred prominent business and professional men of the city served as waiters at the banquet, and when the affair broke up along about 3 a. m. the guests were ready to admit that the "home sector" had anything beaten that they had seen on their travels.
During the spring and summer of 1919 every church and club and township had some sort of a dinner or reception in honor of those who
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had gone to war and whose names had been on their honor rolls. On armistice day, Nov. 11, 1919, practically every community had some such affair. In Racine, the War Mothers society presented five handsome flags to the veterans of the two batteries, the ambulance company, and soldiers and sailors not connect- ed with those organizations. The ceremony was in connection with a big meeting, followed hy a dance, at the Lakeside auditorium.
By the way, this was one of the last public events to be held in the old auditorium, which was burned to the ground early in the morn- ing of Dec. 13, 1919. The building was noth- ing to brag of, but for thirty-five years it had served the city as the one public hall large enough to accommodate two or three thousand people. In it had spoken several Presidents of the United States and other distinguished men. Company F had mobilized there for departure to serve in the Spanish-American war. It had served as an armory for the military organi- zations formed at the outbreak of the World War. Numerous patriotic meetings had been held there during the conflict. The building was situated at the southeast corner of Third street and Lake avenue. It was of frame con- struction, and when the fire started it burned like tinder. There was hardly a piece of tim- ber left when the flames had finished their work.
The soldiers returning after a long absence found conditions much changed in civilian life. The tremendous amount of war work done regardless of cost had ushered in an era of high wages, high prices and high profits. The value of the dollar had shrunk in comparison with the goods that it would buy. A feeling of restlessness seemed to have struck the na- tion. Strikes of widespread effect were of every day occurrence, many of them for minor causes. The question of wages did not seem to be the paramount one, as raises were grant- ed with astonishing regularity. But at the same time, prices of raw and manufactured material, as well as food products, continued to mount. Business was unsettled, although experiencing such prosperity as the world had never known. A cult of Russian bolshevists, who advocated government for, by and of day laborers only, gained headway here and there. Eventually several hundred alien revolution- ists were deported. The railroads were still in the hands of the government, and there were threats from the employes to tie up all transportation systems. Coal miners struck with the avowed purpose of freezing the na- tion into submission to concessions which were
never clearly understood by the public, but the government finally halted this trouble by invoking the war-time laws, as peace had not yet been formally declared in December, 1919. The miners received an increase of wages and a promise of further investigation as to a proper scale of wages and hours of labor.
Wages of from $5 to $15 a day were being paid for labor in Racine, as against half as much two years before. At the same time, sugar was now selling at 15 cents a pound in- stead of 5 cents, and a good ready-made suit of clothes cost $50 instead of $30. Shoes were priced at from $8 to $15 a pair, as compared with $4 to $8 before the war. Every factory was working to its capacity, and the demand from the whole world for American goods kept pushing prices up and np, with resultant benefits and disadvantages for all. It is likely that no such era of general prosperity was ever known in the history of the world. Yet there was much dissatisfaction at the huge profits made by producers and there was a nervons feeling among big business men and financiers as to the ultimate result of such inflation. European countries were "broke." The value of the German mark had dwindled to 5 cents. The French franc had shrunk to three-fourths its former worth in dollars, and even the British pound sterling was no longer near its former value. That there would come a day of reckoning, everyone knew. In the meantime, the United States Senate spent a year in vain efforts to decide upon what terms it should declare peace with Germany. The President, acting for America at the Allied Peace conference at Paris, had agreed to the terms there drawn up and finally signed by Germany. But the Senate disliked some fea- tures of the proposal regarding a League of Nations, and oratory flowed while the affairs of the world continued in a state of chaos.
Prohibition had been established as a war time measure, going in effect July 1, 1919. As peace was not declared this law remained in force. In the meantime nation-wide prohibi- * tion had been adopted as a part of the consti- tution by a vote of three-fourths of the state legislatures, to be in effect Jan. 15, 1920. Thirsty voices demanded the formal ending of the war that they might get a supply of their favorite beverage on hand-but the Presi- dent declined to say the word while the Senate hesitated over his League of Nations. This dry spell, which gave every promise of being permanent, was responsible for some of the unrest of labor in centers where there were many foreigners. At the same time it prob-
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ably did much to keep the violent element sub- dued and peaceable, for violence in strike troubles usually had been due to rash acts on the part of men who had imbibed too freely.
In the summer of 1919, Racine was kept familiar with the sight of uniforms by the fre- quent appearance of recruiting parties who sought men for the regular army and navy, and service men returning from the war. Upon one occasion a naval crew brought a surren- dered German submarine into the harbor, and it was the object of great interest during the twenty-four hours in which it was tied up at the dock just west of the Main street bridge. Later a balloon company stopped off en route to Minneapolis, and the equipment of this army unit aroused much interest. The men trav- elled by truck, and carried with them an obser- vation balloon, but the gas bag was not in- flated here. Army and navy aeroplanes made frequent flights between Chicago and Milwau- kee along; the lake shore, occasionally landing here.
The Red Cross maintained a bureau to as- sist returning service men all during 1919. Owing to the rush of business in the office of the Finance section of the War department, and the numerous laws affecting discharged men, there was a great tangle of records there and often it would be months before a dis- charged soldier could get money which was due him for compensation for injury, travel allow- ance, or back pay which had been withheld when he was separated from his organization. The government passed a law giving each sol- dier a bonus of $60 upon discharge, and those who had left the service before the law was in effect had to go through a good deal of cor- respondence in order to get it. The legisla- ture of Wisconsin also passed a bill granting each service man a bonus of $10 for each month spent in service, with a minimum of $50, and to receive this it was necessary to for- ward the discharge certificate to Madison with an application for the bonus. The army was supposed to issue a Victory badge to each sol- dier and sailor, but as these were not ready, a button in the shape of a bronze star was sub- stituted temporarily. To get one of these, the discharge certificate had to be shown to an army officer at a recruiting station or forward- ed to a department headquarters. The hand- ling of the government insurance, following the change of status from soldier or sailor to civilian, often resulted in tangles which would have tried the patience of Job. No specific rules could be found regarding compensation for disabled soldiers, and many were discharged
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