Winning a Cause Part 26

From that hour of mid-afternoon on Sat.u.r.day when the abdication of the Kaiser was "flashed" to the _Sentinel_ over its a.s.sociated Press wire, there was no relaxation in its plant. In the press room--which must be ready at a second's notice--men were on guard for every minute until the Kaiser's hour struck on Monday morning at 2.45 o'clock. It mattered not to them that a bed between two rolls of paper was the softest they could find, for couches and easy chairs are no part of a newspaper establishment. Sometimes the thought comes that "newspaper"

is but a synonym for "slavery."

With the coming of Sunday morning, without the expected word, the vigil was taken up in other directions. The composing, telegraph, and editorial rooms joined in keeping guard. The wire began to tick off its code messages of riots in Berlin, further spreading of the "Red"

revolt in the army and navy, the flight of the dethroned Kaiser to Holland, and the other numerous signs all pointing to positive a.s.surance that Germany must sign the armistice terms read to its representatives by Marshal Foch, no matter how stern they might be. In mid-afternoon came a brief message plucked from the air--a Berlin wireless--that the signing of the armistice was expected momentarily.

But the hours wore on into late evening, and then came through a dispatch from Washington saying that the delay of the German courier in crossing the line might result in an extension of the 72-hour limit.

Cold water never had a chilling effect equal to that. One by one the afternoon papers began to click out "good night" to the main office until only a few remained with the morning paper operators.

Around The a.s.sociated Press New England circuit it must have been a great day for the tobacco trust, for pipes burn freely under pressure.

From apples to dogs, from men who do little and make a big fuss about it to men who do much and keep still about it, goes the discussion between a bite at a sandwich and a sip at a mug of alleged coffee brought in from a lunch room. All the while the clock was moving along to the hour that was to say whether the answer was peace or more war.

It was during an argument, surely--for that's the stock in trade in a newspaper office--that it came. What the argument was, and who was winning it and who losing it, is forgotten now, for from the adjoining room of The a.s.sociated Press operator at 2.46 o'clock in the morning came the wild exclamation--F-L-A-S-H--The a.s.sociated Press signal, very seldom employed, indicating that something big has happened. Three jumps to the operator's side, and there on the paper in his typewriter appeared just three words: "Flash--Armistice signed." It was enough.

Action replaced watchful waiting.

Not long afterward the bells began to ring and the whistles to blow.

The a.s.sembling place for the celebration the mayor had ordered was right in front of the _Sentinel_ office, the biggest and most available congregation park in the city. By that time the first _Sentinel_ extra had gone to press, and there was a breathing spell. From the top floor of the _Sentinel_ home everything happening below could be seen. First to arrive in the square was an automobile from Prospect hill, driven by the chairman of the committee on public safety, for he had been notified simultaneously with the mayor. Then another car came up Main street. Then men on foot began to arrive. At first they came in ones and twos and threes, up street and down street and around the corners, and then in droves and swarms. Automobiles increased in number, coming from all directions, with blaring horns and seemingly slight regard for their own safety, but also with much regard for the safety of others.

Soon the square was alive, and there will not in our time be another sight like it, for war of conquest is an unpopular business now. The flashing headlights of the motor cars, the screaming horns, the yelling men, women and children, combined to make a picture never to be erased from memory. It was great to have seen it, even though not an immediate part of it. Then the parade started, disappeared down the street, and in due time came back. Later in the day was another parade, and a larger and more formal one. But it was not like the early morning rallying of the "victory clans." Nothing again will ever be like it. A spontaneous celebration of the victorious ending of a terrible struggle that has rocked the world for more than four years has a place by itself.

While the city was still seething with jubilant excitement and the main street was getting more and more alive with people every minute, the darkness of night began to give way before the dawn of day. And it was a beautiful dawn, too. The eastern sky did not reveal itself in sullen shade, but in clear color, more calm than brilliant, more in keeping with a message of peace than of strife on earth.[1]

These celebrations were in many cases of the strangest character, the chief aim seeming to be to march somewhere in some procession and to make as much noise as possible. In one of the large cities of Ma.s.sachusetts, the first sight that struck the eyes of citizens rushing into the square was fifty or more of the most prominent business men, each in a tin wash boiler, being drawn by two men over the paved street while its occupant yelled at the top of his voice and beat its sides with a hammer. Auto trucks dashed up and down the streets as long as these were clear, then joined processions or dragged behind them over the pavements four or five empty galvanized ash cans. In New York at the premature celebration, which occurred November 8 when a false report was cabled from Europe saying the armistice was signed, and at the celebration on November 11, thousands of pieces of paper of all sizes were dropped from the windows of the great buildings, sc.r.a.p baskets were emptied, catalogues, directories, and other pamphlets were torn up and dropped sheet by sheet until in some places the entire street was covered by this "paper snow storm." It is said that it cost the city $80,000 to clean the paper from the streets after the celebration was over.

The tolling of church bells all over the country in the very early hours of the morning not only announced to the people the signing of the armistice, but also announced in many places church services of thanksgiving.

Some cities and towns held two celebrations beside the so-called "fake"

celebration on November 8. The Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts early on Monday issued a proclamation naming Tuesday, November twelfth, as a legal holiday, but this did not deter the people from celebrating on the eleventh. In Boston all the talc.u.m powder available was purchased and thrown on people's hats and shoulders. When it was brushed off in considerable quant.i.ties, it made the pavements look as if they were covered with snow and even more slippery. The chief spectacular feature of the celebration in Boston, however, was the burning on the Common, on Tuesday night, of twenty-five tons of red fire in one great blaze. Similar and perhaps more hilariously happy scenes took place in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco,--in every great city and hamlet in the country.

Soldiers and sailors marched, reviewed by mayors and governors and generals and admirals. Speeches were made and songs were sung. It seemed at times as if everyone had gone crazy. If a person could have ascended high enough in an air plane and could have had the vision to have seen the whole United States, he would have perceived a most wonderful sight--a hundred million people yelling and singing and parading in every nook and corner of this great country. Nothing shows better the horror and hatred of war that was felt by the American people than this wonderful joy at the knowledge that it was all over; and nothing shows better how much liberty and democracy meant to them than their willingness to enter upon war when they so detested it and so much desired to see it done away with forever.

Imagine the joy on these days in France and England and Belgium with their great cities lit up again after more than four years of darkness!

What wonder that the Belgian boys and girls in Ghent marched up and down the streets singing, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary," the song which was probably the last they had heard on the lips of British soldiers as they were pushed back out of the city by the foe!

Meanwhile the adults gathered in groups on the streets and in the cafes and sang "The Ma.r.s.eillaise."

No other war correspondent felt and described the war with as much sympathy and power as Philip Gibbs. His description of the rejoicing in Ghent on Tuesday, November 12, is a beautiful and touching story.

He writes of the lights and the singing as follows:--

"For the first time in five winters of war, they lighted their lamps with open shutters, and from many windows there streamed out bright beams which lured one like a moth to candle light because of its sign of peace. There were bright stars and a crescent moon in the sky, silvering the Flemish gables and frontages between black shadows and making patterns of laces in the Place d'Armes below the trees with their autumn foliage.

"In these lights and in these shadows the people of Ghent danced and sang until midnight chimed. They danced in baker's dozens, with linked arms, men and girls together, singing deep voices and high voices, all mingling, so that when I went to my bedroom and looked out of the cas.e.m.e.nt window, it rose in a chorus from all over the city, like music by Debussy.

"One song came as a constant refrain between all the others. It was 'The Ma.r.s.eillaise.' They sang it in crowds and in small groups of soldiers and students, and I followed one man, who walked down a deserted avenue and who, as he walked, sang the song of liberty to himself, brandishing his stick, while his voice rang out with a kind of ecstasy of pa.s.sion."

Messages of congratulation pa.s.sed from country to country and to armies and navies. Josephus Daniels sent by wireless the following tribute to all United States naval stations and ships:--

"The signing of the armistice makes this the greatest day for our country since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. For the world there has been no day so momentous for liberty. I send greetings and congratulations to all in the naval establishments at home and abroad. The test of war found the navy ready, fit, with every man on his toes. Every day all the men in the service have given fresh proof of devotion, loyalty, and efficiency."

President Wilson cabled to King Albert on the day the king was expected to enter Brussels, the Belgian capital, the following message:--

"Never has a national holiday occurred at a more auspicious moment and never have felicitations been more heartfelt than those which it is my high privilege to tender to Your Majesty on this day."

"When facing imminent destruction, Belgium by her self-sacrifice won for herself a place of honor among nations, a crown of glory, imperishable though all else were lost.

"The danger is averted, the hour of victory come and with it the promise of a new life, fuller, greater, n.o.bler than has been known before.

"The blood of Belgium's heroic sons has not been shed in vain."

The most terrible and b.l.o.o.d.y conflict in all history had ended, and the world was saved for the people. The struggle upward by the common people for over a thousand years was not after all to be in vain.

Liberty and democracy were now a.s.sured to all; the danger of slavery and autocracy was over. It was not strange that a whole world seemed to have gone wild with joy.

[1] George H. G.o.dbeer in Fitchburg, Ma.s.s., _Daily Sentinel_.

IN MEMORIAM

[THE FIGHTING YEARS, 1914-1918]

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow-- The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the n.o.bler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes and foul disease; Ring out the narrowing l.u.s.t of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

TENNYSON.

THE UNITED STATES AT WAR--IN FRANCE

_Adapted with a few omissions and changes in language from the report of General Pershing made November 20, 1918, to the Secretary of War._