Evening Star Newspaper, April 7, 1935, Page 57

AT T HIAR YT SALHAD & T e S WES BT T PO A Stage — Screen Radio — Travel Part 4—12 Pages WASHINGTON, D. C, FEATURES he Sundiy Stard SUNDAY MORN. NG, APRIL 7, 1935. Books—Art—Music Children’s Page IN THIS WAY THE UNITED STATES WENT TO WAR Eighteen Years Ago Yesterday President W oodrow By Thomas R. Henry. * OOD FRIDAY, 18 ago— | G AT 1:11 pm. that day— | April 6, 1917—Woodrow Wil son signed the declaration of war with Germany. The House of Representatives at | 8:17 o'clock that morning had voted | by an overwhelming majority its ap- | proval of the war resolution. The | patience of peace-loving Uncle Sam | years | had been pressed beyond its imit by f the multiplying skulduggeries of the imperial government. | An effigy of Robert M. La Follette was hanging over the center of Four- teenth street at H. Members of | Congress were sleeping in their homes | and hotel rooms after one of the most strenuous and dramatic nights in the history of the national legislative body. ‘Woodrow Wilson waited until three “ones” showed on the face of the clock and then—quietly and without | comment—he signed the resolution. It had been inevitable for weeks. America had known she must go to war. For | nearly three years she had watched the horrible nightmare of blood and smoke and mud across the Atlantic and prayed that it might never come | to her, but realizing vaguely that the | prayer was futile. Now there was no drawing back. THE crossing of that mystic line between peace and war made little superficial difference in the way of life of the average American that somber Good Friday afternoon. All| over the country factory whistles blew, | but the workers continued at their | benches. All over the country there were weddings and funerals. All over the country mothers choked back sobs as they thought of the “fields of Flanders”"—British writers had made America “Flanders-conscious”—and had glimmerings of unanswerable questions, the very audible asking oli which would have been denounced at | the time. From the North Sea to the Black Bea the lines of steel stretched across Europe. Submarines had sunk 18 British ships in a week. Russia was collapsing. The rains were heavy in | Europe that Spring. The armies were | stagnating in a torture of mud, vermin and uncertainty. ‘What did this war declaration mean for America? Was it a gesture? Was 1t real armed conflict? Events had moved swiftly in a week. The extraordinary session of Con- gress called by President Wilson had convened on Monday. It was as nearly a non-partisan Congress as ever had come tc Washington. At 8:40 o'clock that evening the President had laid before the joint session his appeal for a declaration of war in one of the outstanding ex- amples of American oratory. It was hardly necessary, except for its effect on the country. Deafening cheers had greeted him | as he entered the House. The plaza had been cleared for him by cavalry- men with drawn sabers. Only three Senators had refused to join in the cheers when he entered—La Follette of Wisconsin, Stone of Missouri and Cummins of Iowa. Senator La Fol- lette was seen with his arms folded, his chin sunk on his chest. At the end of the address all the Senators— these three excepted—drew from their pockets small American flags and waved them strenuously. The street in front of the White House was packed with enthusiastic Washingtonians when the President returned. They were singing patriotic airs and cheering. Extra police were on duty, but there was no disorder. TBE Senate passed the resolution on ‘Wednesday: “Whereas the Imperial German government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and people of the United States: Therefore be it “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress as- sembled that a state of war between the United States and the Imperial German government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, 1s hereby declared, and that the Presi- dent be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military force of the United States and the resources of the Gov- ernment to carry on war against the Imperial German government, and to bring the conflict to a successful ter- Wilson Signed the Declaration—Scences at the House of Representatives and in the Senate—Quict Spring Day in the Capital, But People W ere Arousedtoa High Pitch. try are hereby pledged by the United States.” Then the resolution had gone to the House. Its passage was certain, but full debate was allowed. The debate in the House had con- tinued for 16 hours and 45 minutes when the vote was taken. More than 100 members had spoken. There had | been some dramatic moments. There | were those in the House membership sincerely opposed to war. They had been accused of cowardice. “Yes,” said Claude Kitchen, the majority leader, “but it doesn’t take any great courage to vote for other men to go out and fight. My con- science and my judgment, after pray- ers for guidance, have shown me that, even if I must tread this path alone, I must vote against this resolution.” The resolute House leader did not have to stand alone. Forty-nine others—Democrats, Republicans, & Socialist and a Prohibitionist—stood with him. There were some pic- turesque figures among them. One was an old gentleman from Ohio, Representative Sherwood. He was the only Union veteran of the Civil War in the House. He should have known whereof he spoke when he protested against “plunging this country into the most ruthless and ribald war in history.” He protested against the ill-repute which was being attached to all things German. Those were days when American towns named “Berlin” were voting to change their names and sauerkraut was being re- ferred to as “liberty cabbage.” Gen. Sherwood wanted to speak longer, but a five-minute rule was in force and Representative Fitzgerald of New York, chairman of the Committee of the Whole, refused permission. Once a fist fight seemed dangerously near between the smallest and one of the largest members. Thomas J. Heflin was then a member of the House from Alabama. He said that any Democrat making such a dis- graceful speech as that of Majority Leader Kitchen should, in common decency, resign his seat. This was resented by Representative Burnett of Alabama. He seemed almost & midget compared with the burly Heflin, whom he defied. “If you feel that way about it,” he told his fellow Alabaman, “you should go back home yourself and enlist.” Heflin intimated that he might. The incident ended in & turmoil of shouting. OST of the members who spoke were in favor of war. There was applause for both opponents and proponents. The only woman mem- ber of the House, Jeanette Rankin of Montana, was observed sitting quietly, her head bowed, joining the applause for neither side. She left late in the afternoon, but returned before the voting started. Some of the members wanted a purely defensive war. They would not vote to send troops outside the United States. They could not un- any more offensively than Great Britain. They thought of the fathers and mothers back home. They could not assume the responsibility for sending boys they had known as ! babies into an European slaughter pen. But the majority sentiment was overwhelmingly against them. The voting started at 2:45 am. Only the voice of the reading clerk as he called the roll broke the dead silence of this solemn occasion. There was no comment—until the clerk came to the name of the lady from Montana. < “Miss Rankin.” ‘There was no response. “Miss Rankin—Miss Rankin,” he repeated twice in a louder voice. She rose to her feet, her face flushed. “I want to stand by my country,” she said in a faltering voice, “but I cannot vote for war.” “Vote! Vote!” cried several mem- bers. “Yes,” she said in a voice barely audible. They went to her side and asked her to repeat it, to make sure it was recorded correctly. Slightly over a half hour was re- quired to take the vote. There never had been any question over the out- President Wilson delivering his war It was 373 to 50 in favor of war. There was a rush to leave the crowded galleries. Champ Clark im- mediately signed the resolution. The news was flashed all over the world. America, to all intents and purposes, was at war Far across the Pacific a bitter old lady ordered the Stars and Stripes | raised over her house for the first | time. For a generation she had | hated Uncle Sam—this Queen Liliuo- :lmlnmu of Hawail, who had been de- | prived of her throne. But the senti- mental old lady’s blood had boiled as ceme. address at the Capitol. she read of alleged German atrocities and now—she raised the Stars and Stripes. Up in Oyster Bay. N. Y., the news stirred the blood of Theodore Roose- velt. He issued a statement calling for “a system of universal military service.” He wanted to raise his own division for service on the western front. The Army had a recruiting tent at Seventh street and Pennsylvania avenue. It was crowded all day. BE IT EVER SO JUMBLED — more deadly fevers in at least one respect. At the onset of the malady the victim feels strange- ly stimulated. The first symptom is increased muscular, respiratory and mental activity—a desire to go places and do things. . Just as the pale genius with the hacking cough does his best work when his days are definitely num- bered. so the vernal valetudinarian displays & phenomenal burst of energy before yielding to the lethargy that in- evitably claims him. He is up at dawn, spading the gar- den and performing odd jobs around the house. He walks to the office, breathing deeply, and at his desk he gives a convincing impersonation of a human dynamo working overtime. But all this time the insidious somnolence is in his blood. The infection of in- dolence is spreading through his sys- tem, though he never suspects it. Women seem less susceptible to Spring fever than men do. Many of them exhibit all the preliminary symp- toms—the restlessness and the aggres- sive busyness—without ever reaching the later, more passive stages of the disease. Some women, in fact, act as “carriers,” although immune from Spring fever themselves. They re- main consistently active, but - the people they live with get very, very tired. Such cases should be isolated. NOWH!R.E is the natural feminine resistance to Spring fever more evident than in the business of house- HOUGH no one has ever died of | Spring fever, it resembles the mmuonnumwcudmu'n- derstand how Germany hadgacted | cleaning, One may u'euu that ' . = - houses should have a thorough clenn-l ing every.so often. But why must it always be now? With four seasons! te choose from, why pick on Spring? There is a touch of the poet in the average man, but it is only in the Spring that he becomes aware of it. Under the influence of languorous Southern breezes, fleecy clouds and twittering birds, he is ripe for ro- mance. He is ready to loaf and invite his soul. But the psychic r. s. v. p. is lost in a cloud of dust, and the girl of his dreams appears with a towel around her head and a broom in her hand. Though Spring cleaning is a fixed festival that recurs annually, it almost invariably comes upon the male mem- bers of the household as an unfore- seen calamity. They leave home in the morning, never suspecting what is in store for them. No reverberations of the crash reach their ears at school and office; no ominous yellow envelope brings them the message, “Come at once. Your Morris chair is sinking rapidly.” But when they return in the eve- ning they find their home practically in ruins. Chairs are sprawled with their feet in the air, beds have been stripped to their chassis. Pictures and bric-a-brac are stacked on the bare floor, the uncurtained windows are fogged with soap, and everything movable—from pianos to pincushions —has been moved. The place is an unrecognizable wreck. Shrouded fur- niture lurks in the shadows, and the funereal effect is heightened by the melancholy wailing of the vacuum cleaner, while a distanjggarpet beater . : | throbs slowly like the tolling of a muffled bell. There is no sanctuary here for poets and dreamers. Ordinary weekly cleaning is done with decent restraint, one room at a time; by charting the zones of low barometric pressure you can ususlly find a sheltered spot even in the midst of the storm. But the first principle of Spring housecleaning is an all-embracing thoroughness. There is no suspense, no build-up. It is like & play in which all the actors— and the scene-shifters, too—are on the stage all the time. It is a three- ring circus, except that there are no seats for spectators. The unsuspect- ing husband opens the front door, and before he has time to hang up his hat he is shanghaled by a feminine press- gang and put to work. As if it weren't hard enough for him simply to gaze on the ruin they have wrought, he is compelled to assist them in the demolition of his own home. The pernicious effects of a general house-cleaning last long after the actual upheaval has subsided. Time, the great healer, works siowly and it is many weeks before the old status quo is re-established. At their worst, the sweeping, scrubbing and beating are ephemeral evils; in a few days the dust settles, the window panes begin to take on their accustomed blue-gray patina, and you can breathe without inhaling feathers. It is like coming out from the anesthetic after a major operation. BUT & protracted convalescence lies ahead of you, s trying period of readjustment—{for thegreal purpose af Top, left: The President and Mrs. Wilson singing at Flag day ceremonies, Sylvan Theater, in 1918, while the United States was at war. Top, center: President Wilson leaving the White House to make his memorable address on war before the joint session of the House and Senate. Top, right: Photograph of President Wilson and Secretary Tumulty taken at the White House early in the war. Secretary Baker watching District of Columbia troops march in front of the White House. Below, right: Below, at left: President Wilson and Photos by Harris & Ewing. IT WAS a cold, gray Spring day. Most of the night before a chill, drenching rain had fallen on Wash- ington. Out at Fort Myer the 3d In- fantry, District of Columbia National Guard, was setting up a tent camp in a field where the mud was ankle deep. With the certainty of war the men had been called from their homes the day before, but, with the exception of one company, all had been allowed to return to their own beds for the night. Their clothing and equipment were soaked. It was a fair introduction to the life they were to know for many | months to come. It was to be a war of rain and mud, at home and over- seas. Within a half-hour after the vote in the House was completed the United States already had won its first engagement when, braving a drench- ing storm of mingled rain and snow, | a force of police and bluejackets had | | taken possession of six German Lluvd | and Hamburg-American Line ships interned in Boston Harbor. It was an | engagement without fatalities, unless from pneumonia. The German crews left peacefully enough. The only re- | sistance was offered by an irate purser |of the Kronprinsezzin Cecilie, who | ludicrously defied the invaders, stand- |ing on the deck in bare feet and | drenched pajamas. In Washington Spring was well ad- vanced that year. The forsythia hedge in front of the German Em- | bassy was in full glory of green and gold. The magnolias in Franklin Park were blooming. Vegetable plants, soil in home gardens. Out on N street | the children of the British Embassy | were making a garden, with much fun |and merriment. Woodrow Wilson passed them on his morning walk and stopped to talk with them. Quite matter-of-fact was that walk | of the President. He and Mrs. Wilson left the White House at 11 o'clock and struck out across La Fayette Park. He was without an overcoat and was swinging a cane. The crowd waiting for the Good Friday services in front of St. John's Church respectfully made Sixteenth street. few acquaintances. They walked briskly to Scott Circle. He seemed especially interested in the display |of flags. They turned up Massa- | chusetts avenue. On the way back | they stopped in front of 1308 Twen- tieth street, the house where they were married. On Connecticut avenue they met Justice Oliver Mrs. Wilson admired some dresses on | display in a shop window. They went inside to look for them. | THE President was back at the ‘White House by 1 o'clock. The war resolution was brought to him. He waited for a few moments. Was there some mystical significance at- tached in his mind to three aces— the three ‘“ones” -recorded by his watch as he affixed his signature? It was only a formality. Thirteen hours had pased since the “battle” with the pajama-clad purser in Boston Harbor. Did the poor fellow get pneu- monia? an iron cross? One wonders. The declaration of war brought about no immediate mystic change in the daily life of Washington—nor of the Nation. The Senators were on their way North. They were to play Pat Moran's champion Philadelphia Nationals at the ball park the next day. Marble-shooting children were obstructing the sidewalks. Govern- ment clerks went home to burn raked- up dry grass in their back yards. The ancient tragedy of Calvary was re- enacted in all the churches, their altars draped in black. A Business — By Weare Holbrook house-cleaning is not cleanliness, but change. Nothing is exactly where it was before. -Even the familiar humps and hollows of your favorite armchair have disappeared. It is obvious that women clean house not for the satisfaction of seeing everything spick and span, but for the advantage it gives them over the men in the family. Every Spring they systematically hide books, letters, pen- clls, golf balls, corkscrews, fishing tackle, comfortable old shoes and other personal property. And when the innocent victims of this mischief appeal to them for some clue to the missing articles they smile patroniz- ingly and sigh, “Men ere so helpless.” They create emergencies simply for the fun of helping us out of them. It was Mr. Milfret who first sug- gested this theory to me. tered him the other day as I was com- ing out of Joe’s lunch wagon. “Eating out, eh?” he said, chuck- ling. “Phoebe’s cleaning house,” I ex- plained, “and she said I'd better—"" “I know, I know,” he nodded. *“We all have to go through it. And now for the next six weeks you'll be prac- tically a stranger in your own home. I tell you, house cleaning is simply a racket promoted by wives to.keep their husbands in subjection. Every Spring my wife has all the furniture moved into different corners of the house. She shifts the pictures on the walls, shuffies the contents of the bureau drawers and remodels the en- tire floor plang And when I object she always says, ‘Oh, I get so tired of seeing the same things in the same place all the time.’ “But I'm going to give her a taste of her own medicine this year,” con- tinued Mr. Milfret vindictively. “When she starts cleaning house I'm coming down to dinner with a rubber boot on my head, my dress suit on back- ward, neckties around my knees, ten- nis shoes on my feet, and my eye- glasses hung over my ear. And when she asks what the big idea is, I'll say, “Oh, I get so tired of seeing the same things in the same place all the time.’ “That,” he concluded grimly, “will show her how silly the whole business is, when viewed objectively.” Yesterday I encountered Mr. Mil- fret egain. He was just entering Joe's lunch wagon. “So you're eating out, t0o,” I ob- I encoun- | served. “Yes,” he said apologetically. “Ev- erything is topsy-turvy at home, so I thought I'd better—" “But what about your little scheme?” I asked. “You told me that when your wife started house clean- you were going to come down to dinner with your dress suit on back- d and tennis shoes on your feet, | nd a rubber boot on your head, and | whatnot—to open her eyes to her folly. Didn’'t your plan work?” “No,” Mr. Milfret sighed. “As a matter of fact I couldn't find my boots or my dress sult or my tennis shoes or anything. And besides,” he added, “there wasn't any dinner to come down to. "Hw about a couple of | The Evening Star of that day reports, | were beginning to break through the | way for the couple as they turned up| They nodded to a| Wendell | | Holmes end stopped to chat with him. | Was he ever considered for High School boy was accepted for enlistment in the Navy and there was some protest that war should be al- lowed to invade the school room. | There were gorgeous gowns for Easter {on display in the Washington store windows. At social gatherings they were singing “Pack Up Your Troubles.” “Tipperary” was already out of date. “The Long, Long Trail” was just be- ginning to be heard. Thousands were getting a rather highly colored impression of war from the most popular book of the day— long since relegated to trash heaps. It was Arthur Guy Empey’s “Over the Top.” A war vocabulary was making its way into the conversation of Amer- ica. Folks talked about “going west,™ | “Tommies,” *camouflage,” “orient,” | etc. Ministers quoted “The Towers of | Oxford” in their sermons. The fash- |ion designers were wracking their ‘bmms to devise snappy uniforms— | overseas caps and all—for militant | 1adies. Lights were burning all night long in the War Department. The Good Friday rituals through Christendom were being chanted against the overtone of the booming guns in Picardy. It was thus that Americans went to war. Beerie Spreads Elm Disease OVERNMENTAL entomologists who are battling against the Dutch elm disease, an enemy of the elm trees which is potentially as dan- gerous to the elms as the chestnut blight was to the native chestnut trees of this country, have at last found | the principal enemy, the carrier of the disease. William Middletown attached to the Bureau of Entomology, after considerable study, has determined that the elm bark beetle is the carrier of the disease. The beetle, feeding on infected trees, picks up fungus of the disease and transmits it to the crotches of unaffected trees when feeding on the healthy specimens. Three instances of such transmis- sion have been obtained on three dif- ferent elm trees. In two cases the beetles used in the experiments were reared from diseased elm bark and wood kept in rearing cages and in the | third case the beetles used were col- lected from an infected elm growing in the open. The experimental work was carried on in a greenhouse at Morristown, N. J. The possibility that many other in- sects, including other boring species and sucking and leaf-eating insects, are carriers of the fungus of Dutch elm disease remains to be studied. So far, however, the bark beetle, Scolytes multistriatus, is the only insect known in this country to carry the infection from one tree and implant it in an- other. Observations to date indicate that there are two complete and a partial third generation of the beetles annu- ally and that from about the middle of May until after the middle of Septem- ber, there is an almost continuous sup=- ply of adult beetles. The retarded in- dividuals of one generation overlap the more advanced individuals of the subsequent generation. ‘The last survey shows that beetle infestation (not Dutch elm disease) in Massachusetts extends as far north as Haverhill, near the New Hampshire line, south to Halifax and west to Wayland. In the vicinity of New York the beetle was found in Con- necticut as far east and north as Meriden and New Milford, north along the Hudson River to Clermont and as far west as Bloomingburg. On Long Island the infestation extends as far cast as Bay Shore to the south and Rosslyn to the north. The beetle is found over New Jersey except in the southern part and in Pennsylvania from Philadelphia north to Bangor and west to the Susquehanna River. Maine and New Hampshire were not surveyed. It should be remembered that the area covered by this beetle has no immediate relation to the area now covered by the Dutch elm disease. Guide for Readers PART 4. Page, When the Ghost Rides....F-2 “Those Were the Happy Days,” by Dick Mans- field .... ceces -2 John Clagett Proctor’s Article on old Wash- Garfield’s Funeral Bill. Books and Art. .. Stage and Screen World of Music Radio News and Prog: Travel Serial Story Crossword Puzzle Children’s Page ... Highlighis of His