a war welcome

NY Times 4-6-1917

In April 1917 the United States entered World War One. 100 years ago today New Yorkers could read a sort of welcoming poem hot off the cable from a famous British writer.

NY Times 4-13-1917

Rudyard Kipling had personal experience of the war-related dying flesh. His “son John was killed in action in the First World War, at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at age 18.”

big doughboy conveyor

“For Freedom’s Brotherhood”

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Thanks to The Economist for explaining that the U.S. entered the war on April 6, 1917; I didn’t have the month down. In his column Lexington wrote about President Calvin Coolidge at the dedication of a World War I monument in Kansas City, Missouri in 1926. It doesn’t seem that the president took the part of or spoke as if he were The American Spirit, but he did refer to it: “If the American spirit fails, what hope has the world?”

Lexington also mentioned that members of the 69th New York State militia (“the fighting Irish”) were so angry to be issued uniforms with British brass buttons when they got to Europe in 1917 that they tore the tunics up. The 69th eventually fought alongside the British against the oppressive tyrants of the world. This gives me a chance to mention that the 1867 St. Patrick’s Day celebration in New York City, not included a serious riot initiated by marchers from Brooklyn, but also the presentation of a “stand of colors” to the 69th. The mayor complimented the regiment for its Civil War service. Lt. Col. James Cavanagh thanked the city for the colors and pledged that he and his men would defend the “emblems of a nation’s life and power.”

“Uncle Sam shaking hands
with the marquis de Lafayette
(1757-1834)”

“To France!”

From the Library of Congress: Rudyard Kipling, Lafayette and Uncle Sam, Liberty Memorial. The image of Leviathan née Vaterland was published in History of the World War, by Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish at Project Gutenberg, where you can also view the American political cartoon

Liberty Memorial, K.C