Newspapers / Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.) / March 13, 1919, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Advertising Rates on Request. DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF BOONE, AND WATAUGA COUNTY. $1.00 Per Year. VOL. XXX. . BOONE WATAUGA COUNTY, N. C, THURSDAY MARCH 7919. No722. '2T Interesting Letter From Francs. The following interesting let ter to'Jtfr: and Mrs. W.N. Howell ofBrookside,JN. C, from their son, Vance, now stationedatMas singy, France, has been handed us for publication: , v Dear Father and Mother: . " Ever since the 19th of Septem ber 1917, 1 have been in the 81st Division of Uncle Sam's Army. I was placed in a medical depart ment of the division. Medical instruction prepared the detach ment to care , for the sick and wounded on the battle field. In this letter I am not speak ing of the operations of the oper ations of the medical detachment alone, but of the division as a whole. Early in July 1918, the 81st di vision was ready for oversea ser vice. We were ready to try our luck with German submarines and baffle the treacherous waves of the Old Atlantic; On the 31st day of July, we, Weighed anchor hfNew York harbor for Liver pool, England. As our vessel plunged into submarine land ev ery soldier turned for a farewell glimpse of the statue of liberty and the home land. It is imposs ible to express our feelings. I am sure a deep feeling of pride predominated in every soldier's heart, yet an undercurrent of Sorrow passed over us, as the last traces of our America sank from our sight beneath the waves of the western sea. Our voyage was long and eventful. Despite the mines and submarines that lay in our path, we landed in 'Liverpool on August 12th. We had a short stay in Liverpool and soon took a train for a long trip across England. We made sev eral stops while traveling' across the island which gave us achance to see the country and cities. The greater part of the country is a rolling plain. You can travel miles and miles without seeing a rock, stump or even a tree. The country is in a very high state of cultivation. As far as' you can see your eyes are greeted with green pastures, fine herds of cat tle and immense fields of wheat. We found the; following cities of England very beautiful and in teresting: Birmingham, Oxford Winchester and South Hampton, Winchester is especially interest ing from' the fact that several English tings were buried there, and Oliver Cromwell once partly destroyed the city. Winchester is credited with having the sec ond oldest cathedral in the world. On the night of the seventeenth of August we crossed the En glish Channel for Cherbourge, France. We passed through the famous English net which has caught so many German sub marines. We steamed by sever al ships that were all under wat er except thertops of the masts They had been sunk by German submarines.' You can imagine some of our feelings. We had ' short rest at Cherbourge and then started across France to the battle line. We often stopped in , French towns for a rest. We were favored with a short stop in Paris. It was in the last days of Sep - tamber that our journey intro duced us tb'the'Alsace-Lorainne 'Sector, in.jtfie V osges mountains : During the 'nineteen days that we ! ' held this f ront, e had our first i taste of war. We held this front ; . with good results and showed the . Germans that we had plenty the stuff you call fight.' At the .'expiration of the nineteen days w3 were relieved, and moved up the battle line by way of St. Mi hiel and Nancy to Verdun. ,.v Vardutf and the near vicinity was held by the French, but rfew kilometers away the Ger mans were heavily entrenched. hey were so stragetically locat ed that the French had not been able to dislodge. them for four years. Our division was given the task of helping change the battle front on this sector of "No Man's Land." It is useless to give the result. When the Yanks received orders to go over the top the Germans only had two al ternatives, die in their tracks or beat it toward the Fatherland. . I am safe in saying they did both. n the meantime they gave us a warm reception with artillery, gas and machine guns. The hor rible sound of those German shells. The memory of them makes you shudder. The air vi brated with the mournful sound of machine gun bullets and the doleful whir of gas shells. The scenes and memories of battles will never be forgotten by the boys on the field. The German watch-word seemed to be "take no prisoners, show no mercy, give no quarters." But alas! poor Hun, he was doomed. His first in'e of defense broke, the second followed suit, and he broke, and run. At this stage of the fight a German major waved a flag of truce. Suddenly the noise of battle ceased and the most dead- y silence I have ever experien ced prevailed over the bloody field. The sudden change from the noise of battle to perfect quiet was such a shock that we were at loss to know what had happen ed. When we came to ourselves we realized we were the victors. he Huns had lost the battle of Verdun. Americans and Ger mans who were a few minutes before engaged in a life and death struggle, now exchanged souven iers and talked of the battle. One of the German soldiers asked me how much territory the Yanks wanted to take in a day. I rep- ied, "when we take the territory surrounding Berlin we will con sider it a days work. Since the Armistice has brought about a cessation of hos tilities we have had a chance to recall the great principles for which we have fought. The world will long remember the victory of iberty and khaki. They know no retreat. We are proud of the fact that we have had the oppor tunity to fight for the grandest nation and the greatest people in the world. We shall never reg ret our service to you. Every one of the khaki clad would go thru another similar struggle for the same cause. Now our thoughts drift back to home and friends. We are anx ious to return to "America" to watch the results of our victory and the development of our great nation. The thing that now in terests us most is "Where do we go from here?" Your loving son, Vance. ;wa Hundred Dollars More far Hospital in Boone. Editor Democrat: I was glad to see a suggestion in the last is sue of your paper by Mr. H. W. Horton that sufficient money be subscribed in the county to build and equip a first class hospital in Boone. I cannotimagineanything that is more needed, and Mrs. Stringfellow and myself will each subscribe $100.00 to said fund, so you can add our names to the list, started by Mr. Horton for like amount. W. W. STRINGFELLOW Aniston, Ala. 96,868 United States troops were returned during the month of February by the cruiser and transport force of the navy. ' Mr. Wilson's Triumph. (From The New York Times.) Americans who regretted the resident's decision to absent himself from the country in these days of domestic need and urgen cy, and the Times was one of those which regretted it, will not only cheerfully admit the great ness of his achievements at the ?ai'is Conference, but will rejoice in their recognition of his now amply demonstrated fitness for the work he undertook. Mr. Wil son's presence at the Conference has not been a cause of discord or of jealousy; it has not been re sented. It was seen from the be ginning that he went there not to dominate, as his critics said, but to unite the nations. He has been marvelously successful in bring ing into agreement men who rep resented interests that seemed, to be conflicting. His influence in this work has prevailed be cause all the other nations repre sented looked upon him as a wise and impartial friend, interested only in making justice and the welfare of peoples the basis of the decisions reached. H i s triumph in securing unanimous approval of the league of nations constitution is one inwhichevery American may take pride. Mr. Wilson has a dreadful way with his critics. He does not re ply to them, he does worse. They rail at him as an idealist, a vision ary, a man without practical ob jectives, or if he have them, that they are impossible of acceptance and they obligingly point out the things he ought to do. ' Mr. Wil son calmly continues his great abors, and presently lays his critics flat and leaves them heir ess, either by doing the very things they had proposed, and doing in a manner better than they ever dreamed of, or else by attaining his ends in a way that robs their objections of every p-)int. We are confident that Mr. ack, for instance, must regret the violence of the language he used in his Lincoln Day address when he said that Mr. Wilson's 'oreign policy throughout "has been a black stain of dishonor upon the American psople"; that "his principles have been a crazy pitchwork of contradictions," c mu'i ;to:il only in one idea, that the war must end in a peace without victory." If this be just criticism, then Mr. Wilson has as his accomplices in dishonor ing the American people, in con structing "his crazy patchwork of contradictions," and in bring ing the war to an end without victory, some fourteen nations of the earth, including the greatest civilized nations. Such criticism recoils disastrously upon him who utters it. Not even the natural desire of a great political parly to find or create "issues" for the coming presidential election can give lodgment in the minds and hearts of the people to this esti mate of Mr. Wilson's distinguish ed service, Dies of Measls. Mr. J. Crit Brown died at his home on Middle Fork of NewRiv er, last Wednesday evening, af ter an illness of several days with measels. Mr. Brown was an hon est industrious citizen. He leaves a wife and five young children, and several grown children by his first wife, who has been dead for a number of years. 14,000 men of the famous 27th division arrived at home in New York last Thursday, the 6th inst. The 27th fought with the 30th di vision in breaking the Hinden-burgline. Is i Northern Lumberman Sees limber Conditions in Watauga. Prof. B. B. Dougherty is in re ceipt of the following letter from Mr. J. D. Loizeaux.of Plaintield, N. J., who was in Boone some time ago, and is published in full by request of the School. 'I was in your town recently and was sorry not to have been able to see you for a little while, which I had anticipated. Of course you do not know me at all, and I will simply say that we are lum ber dealers, operating in your county to some extent for the past two years, and hope to con tinue it, increasing the produc tion. "My reason for desiring to see you was because lam sure, from what I know of your training school, that it is the fountain head which places before the sur rounding country the matter of its needs. Two things have stood out before me as being most es sential for the welfare of your beautiful mountain country: The first is that the forests are being wantonly depleted without any thought of recuperation. Yoijr county, to my judgment, is es sentially a forest region most valuable for that purpose, and what has already been put into cultivation certainly can be made very valuable for dairy purposes. But, to think that this splendid forest land should steadily be de nuded, would seem to me most to be regretted. If the timber were cut judiciously, say about 50 per cent of the trees cut down, there would be at least 80 per cent of the lumber harvested which is growing on the land, while the remaining 20 per cent embodied in 50 per cent of the trees is almost valueless as far as lumber is concerned. Yet, in 20 or 30 years this young growth o- pened up to the sunshine and re lieved of the larger trees which takeupthestrengthoftheground, will very quickly mature into beautiful lumber again. Even though I am notinterested to any great extent in the country, I view with great regret the fact that this sort of lumbering is not carried out, and I believe that if you would agitate such a thing it would find its way into the prop er channels and would beof great service to your country." Coy Rogers Returns From France. Private Coy Rogers, sonof Mr, and Mrs. W. W. Rogers.of Route 1, who saw active service on the front in France, returned to his home on Monday of last week, having recently recovered from an attack of pneumonia in an En glish hospital, Young Rogers was in a number of engagements, his greatest activities being on the Chateau Thierry front buthe was fortunate enough to come out without a wound. He has some in teresting souvenirs, oneof which is a Catholic crucifix suspended by a silver wireon which isstrung bone beads, the wearer, a Ger man woman, having been killed in action while operating a ma chine gun, and the same was ta ken from her neck by Mr. Rog era. He says that were he to at tempi to aescnoe conditions as they really existed over there he would at once be branded as prevaricator by many people, hence, along this line, he is rath er noncommunicative. He wasde mobilized at Camp Lee, Va. Representative Joseph W. Ford ney, of Michigan, has been elect ed chairman of the ways and means committee by the Repub licans of the house. He succeeds Representative Kitchin of North Caroliia. Bonus For Discharged Soldiers. The followingcircular has been received from the Finance De partment, Washington, D. C: Section HOC) of the Revenue Act approved Feb. 24. 1919, au thorizes the payment of a bonus of $00.00 to officers, soldiers field clerks and nurses of the Army upon honorable separation from active service by discharge, res ignation or'otherwise. This bo nus is not payable to the heirs of any deceased soldier. Those whoare discharged here after will receive this bonus on the same roll or voucher upon which they are paid their final pay. Those who have been discharg ed and have' received their final pay without the $00.00 bonus, should write a letter to the Zone Finance Officer, Lemon Building Washington, D. C, stating their service since April 6 , 1917, the date of last discharge and their present address to which they desire their bonus checks to be sent and enclosing with this let ter their discharge certificate or Military order for discharge and both, if both were issued. Upon receipt by the Zone Fi nance Officer, Washington, D. C. of this information and the sol dier's discharge certificate, this officer will cause checks to be drawn and mailed to the claim ants in the order in which their claims were received by him. The discharge certificate will be returned to the soldier with the check. It is estimated that at least one million and a quarter persons have been discharged from the service who are entitled to the benefits of this Act and while payments will bemade as expe ditiously as practicable, it will manifestly take considerable time to write and mail this many checks." M r. Cameron Williams, of Blow ing Rock, who was recently de mobilized at Camp Taylor, Ky., and reached his home some days since, was among relatives and friends in Boone last Thursday. He was accompanied by his sis ter, Miss Marjorie, brother Bow er, and Miss Eunice Holshous er, the efficient AssistantCashier of the Bank of Blowing Rock The young man is looking fine; enjoyed camp life, his one regret being that he saw no over sea ser vice. WHAT'S THE REASON? MANY BOONE PEOPLE IN POOR HEALTH WITHOUT KNOWING THE CAUSE. Thera are scores of people who drag out a miserable existence without realizing the cause of their suffering. Day after day they are racked with backache and headache; suffer from ner vousness, dizziness, weakness, languor and dopression. Perhaps the kidneys have fallen behind in their work of filtering the blood and that may be the root of the trouble. Ijook to your kidneys assiittnem in tneir work give them the held they need. You can use no more highly recco mended remedy than Doan's Kid ney Pills. Below is a grateful testimony from a suilerer in this locality: N. G. Deal, wood worker, Hick ory, N. C, says: I suffered a lot from kidney trouble. My ba-k was lame and sore and I had to stop work. At night I was rest less and sometimes had to walk the floor. Doan's Kidney Pill's gave me prompt relief, removing the pain in my back and making me feel better in every way. Price 60c, at all dealers. Dont simply ask for a Sidney remedy get Doan's Kidney Pills the same that Mr. Deal had. Fos-ter-Milburn Co., Mfgrs. Buffalo, N. Y. The out-door lights on t h e campus of oru school, look good to the pedestrians of Boone as they grope their way over the present muddy and uneven high way through the village. Surely our town fathers could raise en ough money to keep the State of North Carolina from 'losing one penny and get the New Riv er Light and Power Co., (the A. T. S.,) to turn on ourlights again. t would be too bad for the school in winch the citizens of Hoone have considerable cash, to play a osing game in this matter, but for the love of Mike, if there is no relief for us, please quit tan talizing us with thelights on the State's property. Seventy thousand Swede shoo workers will be thrown out of employment April 15, by suspen sion of operations in all shoe fac tories of the country. The close up is due to overproduction dur ing the war, and ''unsound specu- ation" since the cessation of hos tilities. An epidemic of typhoid fever is now raging" over Russia. In one hospital in Petrograd 8,000 persons die monthly. In the provinces the mortalily is "so great that the Bolsheviki have is sued orders to kill all the incura ble cases, thus hoping to coun teract the contagion. Five persons were shot, two of them probably fatally last Thurs day night in another of a series of Sicilian feudist fights in Det roit, Mich, that have resulted in the death of six Italians during the past month. H. A. Herbert, Secretary of the Navy in Cleveland's cabinet in 1893-1897, died March 6, in Tam pa, Fla., aged 85 years. Inter ment will be in Montgomery Ala. All employees of the PostalTel- egraph company have received notice that a flat increase of 10 ercent in wages, dating from Jan. 1, has been granted them. CHRONIC CONSTIPATION. There are people who never have a movement without it is produced by a cathartic. Most of them have brought that condi tion on themselves by the use of mineral waters and strong cath artics that take too much water out of the system and aggrevate the disease they are meant to re lieve. A mild laxative tonic like Chamberlain's Tablets affords a gentle movement of the bowels that you hardly realize has been produced by a medicine, and their use is not so likely to be followed by constipation. Food is so scarce that cats sell readily fof $3 each in Bolshevik Russia Thousands are dying daily of starvation. DOLLARS AND CENTS. Counting it only in dollars and cents, how much did that last cold cost you? A man may not always stop work when he has a cold, but perhaps it would be bet ter if he did. It takes about 10 days to get completely rid of a cold under the usual treatment. That time can be much shorten ed by taking Chamberlain Cough Remedy and proper care of your self, in fact, a bottle of this rem edy in the house is a mighty good investment in the winter and spring months. FOR THE CHILDREN. Too much care cannot be exer cised in selecting a cough medi cine for children. It should be pleasant to take, contain no harm ful drug and most effectual in curing their coughs and coldr. Ixmg experience has taught thac Chamberlain's Cough Remedy me?ts these conditions. It is a favorite with many mothers.
Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
March 13, 1919, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75