The Lampasas Daily Leader. (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 14, No. 199, Ed. 1 Saturday, October 27, 1917 Page: 2 of 4
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Lampasas Area Newspaper Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Lampasas Public Library.
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THE LAMPASAS DAILY LEADER
Why f rench-Cana<lians
iri> lor Canada
........
Altllion arid a half
of them in the United
States proud to fight
for Uncle Sam::
Those in the Domin’
ion show ancient
hate for England\
once their conquerer
claimed exemption—live brothers, aged
twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-five,
twenty-seven and twenty-nine years,
respectively. Another family had four
sons of draft age, and six others had
three apiece—eight French-Ameriean
I families, in brief, furnishing the amaz-
j ing number ol‘ 27 conscripts.
; Young French-American men in Low-
1 ell—home, by the way, of George
d Charette, one of the “heroes of the
J Merrimac” of Spanish war fame—had
j always in peace times enlisted to a no-
! tic-eable extent in the regular army
i and navy and in the national guard,
j As one officer of the latter organiza-
! tion put it: “The French boys always
tv THE United States a mb- j .yere strong for the national guard.”
Hon and a hall trench- j Upon the call to arms, the response of
Canadians are proud to | these same “French boys” was strlk-
inake wm for Uncle Sain. [ng_ in gppe pf the circumstances of
Those in Canada have re- i so many ’0f them, forcing abstention
lused to volunteer .for serv- j j)eclluS€ Gf dependents to support, vol-
Ice and have fought con- j u,Peering was brisk with them in all
| branches of the service. When the
j draft came into operation, Military
! District Number 4, corresponding to
j Ward 6, Lowell’s banner “French
| ward,” had only 68 men to call to fill
i its quota, so numerous had been the
i voluntary enlistments, or "credits,” in
i the section.
J A recruiting officer in Lowell, who
! had been previously stationed in sev-
•c . . , , , ! eral other New England cities, showed
Irench-Americara as they want to be j „ „ 0( Ms reglster wbere 15 of
fi 7 „ contrast with the ntt.- „ M voUlnteers, names lt contained
tnde of their Quebec cousins. Their
scription dangerously and fiercely.
They declare that fighting for Canada is
fighting for England, once their con-
queror. Why all the rumpus? We pre-
sent here an analysis of the situation
by Yvonne LeMaitre, a Frencli-Cana-
dian. Her article is taken from the
Boston Transcript, and says in part:
The one great striking fact about
fhe behavior of the French-Canadia'ns
on the Yankee side of the line—or
respoih* to m cull has beer, sptodul. j wllto £ ,he ..French bo.vs..
Accortlhg to recruit,ng officers, they . whereyer he had been. This
and the Italians are the two racial ^ of course ex tlonu!| hut a0
Sioups which have lurnlshetl the tent-1 tlle book was „m,„ut several
est proportion of volunteers in New , the
England. And since the coming of the 1 . . , , „ _____
. * . . . .. . B , j way from that of a prosperous young
draft, not only have they been prompt-'
ly and patriotically acquiescent to the
nation’s demand, but have filed fewer
exemption claims, again according to
official report from the stations, than
any other element in the population
of foreign stock.
Aside from this patriotic American
war spirit, their sympathy and affec-
tionate regard for France is lively;
there is scant friendship for Britain,
and interest in Canadian affairs is
keen among the older people and prac-
tically absent among the younger.
Lowell, with its population of some
28.000 people of French name and
race, is a shining spot for the study of
this “triple patriotism”—if one may
dare the term—involving a race twice
transplanted and as often de-national-
ized and re-nationalized.
The natives of France in Lowell are
few, and chiefly represented by priests
in charge of the largest French Cath-
olic parish in the city and by members
of a religious brotherhood, the Mur-
ists, in cherTv of the boys’ parochial
nohuoi in the same parish. Several of
these Marists are at the front, haying
at once responded when the call came
from France early in the war. One
was killed on his first day under fire.
So this calm home of a French Cath-
olic brotherhood th Lowell, surrounded
by a delightful garden, with a charm-
iing view on the Merrimac, is a spot
where the war is very much of a
reality and every mail from France an
event
Lowell’s French-Canadian stock, like
all others submitted to Uncle Sam’s
alchemy, varies greatly in degrees of
American assimilation. It has the two
extremes, of complete assimilation and
; utter “hyphenation,” and all the shades
j between. By the newspapers they
iread ye shall know them 1 Lowell has
; a large enough contingent of the older
! French-Canadians who subscribe to La
jPresse and La Patrie of Montreal and
I to Le Devoir, Bourassa’s organ, and to
whom Canada is still very near;
they are the ones interested in the
: conscription quarrel in the Dominion.
It has a much larger number who read
I only American papers, young people
born in “les Etats” and who insist that
(they are Americans first, last and all
| the time—that species of eagle-spread-
jing adopted son which Uncle knows
ihow and likes to turn out, “plus roy-
ialiste que le roi.” more Catholic than
-the pope and more American than the
I Father of His Country. It has taken
I the French-Canadian stock longer to
I evolve this type, perhaps, than it has
i taken the Irish stock, probably because
|of the difference in languages and a
greater attachment of the French-
i Canadians to their own school's. But
[there is no questioning the fact that
lit has very much arrived, and is bound ,
lawyer to that of a woodcliopper who
phonetically signed “Arment,” the
named he shared with the lover of the
Dame aux Camelias.
The five Lowell units of the nation-
al guard went into camp with one-
fourth or over of their men French-
Amerieans, while many more, accord-
ing to an officer, had at some time
tried to join and* been “turned down”
for various reasons. One company of
the railroad engineers’ reserve, num-
bering 160 men now in France en-
gaged in railroad building, was organ-
ized and is captained by a Lowell
French-Canadian, who naturally sought
among his compatriots for volunteers
and secured the larger part of them
from rhelr ranks. A company of the
state guard in Lowell is composed to
a man of “French boys” and captained
by one, these same “French boys” be-
ing older men with dependents who
in the war—an Ariadne’s web made
up of both condemnation and approval
of the Quebec reluctance.to serve.
Willing as they have shown them-
selves to help Uncle Sam make “tile
world safe for democracy,” in general
they do not condemn their Canadian
kin-folk, and commentary almost in-
variably opens with a condoning: “Oh,
well, in Canada, it isn’t the same
thing.”
Why? Not all of the “French boys”
who have, gone gladly into the Amer-
ican ranks can clarify their feeling
into so many words, but the secret of
lt Is certainly this: as American citi-
zens and soldiers of the United States,
they feel part of a proud sovereign
nation “making” war; Canada, on the
Contrary, is only “participating” in the
wjir, and the Quebec cousin, If he
fights, only “fights for England.”
In certain French-Canadian minds
hostility to anything English in itself
is natural. And this Hostility is pre-
cisely corollary to the attachment for
France, vanquished by England on
Canadian soil a century and a half
ago, and sucli as have it will not fight
for England at any price, even with
France involved in the quarrel as it is
today. It Is sentiment, “reasons that
reason does not know,” and an Irish-
man understands just what it means.
Add to this fundamental hostility to
Britain which is of the blood, the bit-
terness of the bilingual war between
the French and English factions in
Canada, the multiplying grievances of
Jean Baptiste in regard to the rele-
gating of French to the rank of an
“accomplishment” in the Manitoba and
Ontario schools, the rumbles of that
“guerre de races” he hears of with
every visit of a relative from the
North, and the New England cousin
of Jeau Baptiste is apt enough to ex-
claim : “They have reason in Quebec!
To hell with helping the English in the
war I”
Besides the merely sentimental,
there are the “thoughtful” spmpathiz-
ers for Quebec, keener students of the
question. In these same people there
is no dream of-resisting the draft here,
it is even approved of as the wisest
war measure President Wilson could
take to have imposed it at once with-
out asking the people to vote on it.
But with one voice they say that In
Canada “ce n’est pas la merae chose”
and that to impose conscription on a
little country of 7,000,000 inhabitants
which has already volunteered 400,000
soldiers is tyranny. Note here the
subtle difference in the “sense of coun-
try” and the “sense of colony,” as it
$
I#
if;
|
lj
By Order of
Court
By Archey Cameron New
;l
!l
could not otherwise serve, but who were. French Americans here feel
are all patriotically anxious to give-
what they can. ITattsbu/g' 'commis-
sions- have also been sought and se-
cured.
Patriotism has been shown in vari-
ous other Ways. A French-American
group of the Red Cross has been
formed, and knitting is fast and furi-
ous among the French girls. Priests
in the French churches have preached
volunteering. Earlier in the war one
young priest stirred social gatherings
at the Association Catholique, the
largest organization of French-Amer-
ican men in the city, by passionate
appeals for voluntary service under
the American colors. That organiza-
tion alone has over 60 volunteers now
wearing khaki or the sailor’s blue.
In brief, all reports tend to show
that the one million and a half people
of French-Canadian stock In the
United States are gladly and even
eagerly accepting war service, while
two million of the same people in Can-
ada are apparently opposing it “en
bloc.” What can be the reason for
this striking difference of attitude?
The English colonies in 1776 became
American of their own volition. The
French of Canada became English in
1763 by force of conquest. England
to the American colonials was the
burden shaken off; France, to the
Canadian colonials, the lost treasure.
“There is no logic,” a young Amer-
ican once said t.o me, “about the
French-Canadian affection for France
and the corresponding dislike of Eng-
land—one horn of the other—after a
century and a half of English rule. It
Is mere sentiment. Political, that is,
practically, France’s name is erased
from the Canadian consciousness.”
The sentimental link with France
has naturally remained stronger with
the educated classes. It always does.
to he an ever-energizing factor In the [ The cultured lose more in losing the
political advancement and general ma- j ancestral land because they had pos-
lerlal progress of the race in New [ aessed more of that land’s heritage.
England. j This is what 1ms puzzled Americans
The American end of the war comes i so much—the contradiction in the Que-
,home vividly to New England’s French-! bee Frenchman’s refusal to serve when
i Canadians because of the extraordl- : he is described as still fond of France,
•nary fecundity of the race, in which i This contradiction, however, is not
(respect they differ so markedly from j wholly contradictory. The ancient
[their "cousin* de France.” The pro- j French blood bond, the occult and
portion of young men of military age I mighty pact of race, is still the ob-
‘ among them Is strikingly large be- | sen re root of many things, and it can-
! cause their families are so prolific, j not be Ignored in “getting at" the
, One Lowell family alone had five con- i complex feeling-of French-American#
‘scripts—not one of whom, by the way, j on the attitude of their Quebec cousins
that they are fighting “for their coun-
try” and the draft is just. Canadians
in their eyfes are colonials who are
“helping,” who have first of all the
right to decide whether they wTill do >
it or not.
L’Etoile, the Lmvel 1 French paper,
has taken an emphatic stand against
conscription in Canada; also against
the recruiting of New England French
Canadians for Canada’s forces. Cana-
dian recruiting officers recently on tour
in New England have been the butt of
acerb aspersions from that quarter.
“Serve the great cause under the Stars
and Stripes,” reiterates the editor,
“don’t go- to Canada to serve by the
side of English francophobes and fan-
atics.” This attitude has been char-
acteristic of the French-American
press of New' England, consisting of
some 10 or 12 sheets distributed among
the larger textile centers, with but an
exception or two. It has patriotically
“rooted” for volunteer service under
-the American colors on the part of
French-Americans, and in the same
breatli defended the Quebec French
who refused to enlist under the British
colors.
In the bilingual quarrel the French-
American press naturally sided with
the French element, contending that
its rights were trampled upon, and
the present hostility to English effofti
in Canada is a remUtant.
By these extremists the big word
annexation is pronounced. “Would not
Canada be much better off if lt were
American?” they ask.
At the other end of the bridge are
found those who bitterly denounce the
Quebec cousins as traitors, rebels, cow-
ards, etc., and have not enough words
to paint them black. "What!” ex-
claimed one fervid citizen, “before the
war didn’t that Nationalist crew’ and
other ‘patriots’ sing La Marseillaise
with tears in their eyes? And didn’t
they clamor ‘Restons Francals I’ on
every roof? Their very salvation, and
that <«t Canada Itself, demanded that
they should carefully keep their skirts
from the contaminating English, and
aboto all remain themselves, remain
French. And now that France is
clutched by the throat, their refrain
lias suddenly changed to ‘We are Cana-
dians, neither Frenchmen nor English-
men ! This war is none of our affair!’
I must say that these people pass my
comprehension.—Boston Transcript,
......... ... t
(Copyright, 1917, by the McClure Newspa-
per Syndicate.)
Sleepy desolation settled more thick-
ly on the courthouse square at placid
Euclid-Corners as the mercury stead-
ily rose in the tube and the county
seat sizzled under the fierce summer
heat. Even the few horses hitched out-
side the general store while their mas-
ters dawdlfed on the steps with old Zeb
Marks, were too lazy to brush aside
the flies that swarmed atiout their
sweaty flanks.
In the old courthouse across the
square the county clerk and his single
assistant, perched upon their high
wooden stools, scrawling at the docket,
bemoaned the fate that kept them
there while the summer recess afford-
ed some of their more fortunate breth-
ren a chance to get away to cooler
climes. But off In one corner of the
old gray building, in a small chamber,
rather imperfectly cooled by a large
electric fan, lounged one individual
who seemed to care not whether the
rest of the w’orld was sizzling. For be-
hind «. desk, heaped high with law
-books, stenographers’ copies, blue-
prints and papers of every description,
his feet encased in large, roomy gai-
ters, and resting on the desk before
him, a huge silk “kerchief” wrapped
about his seamy neck and an old green
eyeshade perched atop his broad, hu-
morous nose, old Judge Bates sat
drowsily staring at the printed page
before him, his thoughts afar off.
And into his muslngs, as if it were
a dream, there stole the sounds of
the rustle of a woman’s dress, and sud-
denly he turned his head toward the
half-opened door, and brought his feet
abruptly to' the floor. For a young, de-
liciously cool little-apparition in a thin
blue frock, revealing a w’hite, rounded
throat nnd a slender, graceful figure
from the top of her glorious golden
head to the tip of her tiny slippers,
advanced tow’ard him, a troubled look
in her big blue eyes.
“Well, bless my soul!” exclaimed the
judge, kindly, rising and extending his
horny brown paw and grasping her
slim w’hite hand cordially; “little Ruth
Marston. What brings you in town
today?”
“I—came—for advice,” faltered the
girl nervously.
“Well, this is the place,” said the
other, smilingly. “Here—sit down.”
And he graciously brushed the dust
from an old armchair and beckoned
the orphaned daughter of his old law
partner to be seated. “What is the
trouble?”
She regarded him a moment in
doubt, then plunged ahead.
“I—er—if—er,” she stammered, and
he leaned forward and patted her hand
reassuringly.
“Go ahead,” he urged, in a kindly
tone; “Don’t be afraid, Ruth. You’re
just like my own daughter. Is it—er—
a love affair?”
She stared and looked into his keen
eyes before replying.
"Y—yes,” she admitted, blushing fu-
riously. “I—wanted to know if I could
—that is, can a young man—go back
on you whenever he wants to?”
The old judge whistled.
“So,” he exclaimed. “Is that it?
Who’s the feller? Is he—all right,
Ruth?”
“I—I don’t know as I ought to tell
you,” she continued, “but I thought
maybe I could sue him for breach of
promise.
“What!” almost yelled the Judge.
"A daughter of Sam Marston suing a
man for breach of promise?. Never.
My dear girl, where’s your pride? The
idea !*’
She dropped her eyes and blushed
more furiously than ever,
"Well, I thought—’’ she started, then
breaking into tears, she cried, through
clenched hands, "but, Judge, I love him
so! And I do w’ant him. He’s so fine,
so noble. And maybe it’s my fault.
He—”
“Come, come,” he soothed her.
“Brace up and tell me all about it.
Breach of promise suits never bring
’em back. Maybe there’s another way.
Tell me, who’s the man? And what’s
the trouble?’’
“It’s John Summers,” she answered
brokenly, and the Judge Jumped again.
“Not. that young feller that’s prac-
ticing law over th’ way?” demanded
the Judge, incredulously. “What 1
Well, see here, he’s a nice boy. Tell
me the rest."
“Well,” she continued, “he was go-
ing with me until papa died. Then he
started to grow cold. He stopped com-
ing to the house, except once in a
while, and then he didn’t come at all.
And—and now he’s going with the girl
jaext to us. They moved here from the
city six months ago, nnd he’s boarding
at her house. They’re always together.
What can I do?”
The judge bit an end off his plug^of
tobacco and settled back In his chair
to think. Young John Summers!
Why, he was one of the brightest and
finest young men that practiced before
him. Upright, honorable, always cour-
teous to the court and considerate to
his clients—what few he had 1 There
was something back of it. But what?
For a few moments he shut his eyes,
“See here,” he told her, “you leave
this to me. I’ll ’tend to it.”
“But, judge,” she demurred, gently,
“L—I have no right to trouble you—
about that. You—”
“Never mind!” he Interrupted, run-
ning his hand contentedly over his
broad, bald pate. “Jes’ leave -it to me.
Us old fellers don’t have much fun
these days. Nothin’ new to interest
us. This here business will give me
something new to think about. Now,
you jes’ run along, and come back
here:—let’s see—a week from today,
that’s it—a week from today.”
And he settled back again in his
chair and seemed to be drowsing. She
started to speak, then checked herself,
and, looking at him. doubtfully, half
lovingly, she tiptoed from the room
and closed the door.
A clean-limbed young man, with a
girl at his_ side, emerged from the
Burns cottage, laughing merrily. They
swung down the village street in step,
he carrying a suitcase, and she a large
box. On the opposite side, from be-
hind the wide trunk of an oak, there
stepped a gray-haired but vigorous old
gentleman, and, staring after them, he
shook his fist at their backs menac-
ingly.
‘Well, John Summers,” grated Judge
Bates between his teeth, for lt was he
who had been watching the. house op-
posite for nearly an hour. “So you’re
jiltin’ Ruth, eh?” He started to mut-'
ter something else, when a sudden res-
olution seized him and he swung
across to the watched cottage and rang
the bell.
“Judge Bates!” exclaimed Mrs.
Burns in surprise, as she opened the
door, “What brings you here?”
“I want to see young Summers,” he
answered, jumping at an excuse.
“Why, you just missed him,” an-
swered the woman; “he and Katherine
just left. She’s going back to the city
for six weeks. He’s taking her to the
station. You see, Kit’s going to marry
John’s brother. He works up in the
city. Wanted her to come up and help
pick out the furniture.”
Judge Bates stood and gasped. She
stared at him in amazement, and he
caught her stare and brought himself
back to earth with a bump.
“Can—I—er—would you,” he stam-
mered confusedly, “show me his room?
I—er—i’d like to see how the young
man is fixed.”
“Why—no!” answered the surprised
Mrs. Burns, taken aback at the un-
usual request. “This way, judge.”
Judge Bates prowled about John
Summers’ room, and several times
paused and took various photos in his
hand, then.set them down without com-
ment. Five minutes later he left the
house, but a humorous twinkle had set
in the corners of his keen old eyes and
there was a grim set to his lips, as he
ambled back toward the courthouse.
It was early morning, three days
later, as Judge Bates sat across his
desk from John Summers. For several
seconds he had stared at the young
man silently, then he broke into
speech^
“You’re a funny mixture, Summers,”
he was saying. "You’re a whopping
big fool, and a durn fine man. I kinda
reckoned you was a bit proud. But
th’ fool part of It is—stoppin’ speakin’
to a girl jes’ ’cause she’s got money an’
you haven’t. Hang it, boy, haven’t you
got gumption enough to be lookin’ for-
ward? D’ye expect t’ be poor all your
life? Y’ got th’ counselorship fer th’
plow wox-ks over t’ Grandin. An’ you’re
th’ lawyer for the two Smith old maids.
You’re gettin’ on. What’s the matter
with you?"
“But I haven’t as much as Ruth has.
Judge,” stubbornly persisted the young
lawyer. “And I don’t want her for her
money.”
“Stop!” thundered the judge, bring-
ing his fist down upon the desk. “Stop
before I—before this court loses its
temper. Now, see here, you proud
young fool, God bless you. I’m trus-
tee for Ruth’s money and her two
brothers and sister, besides. Now I’m
getting too old for that Job. It’s about
time it went to a younger man. The
law allows 7 per cent commission on
the estate. That, with what you’ve got
now, will be as much as Ruth’s got.
D’ye see?”
“Yes, but—” .John started to pro-
test, but again the judge exploded.
“No huts," he snapped; “you’re ap-
pointed trustee for the Marston estate
—to take effect at once. It’s—it’s an
order of this court. And what’s more—
ye’ll find Ruth over there in the next
room. You’ve had your fill at looking
’round your room at her picture. Now,
go get a good look!” And a second
later a resounding smack from the
next room acquainted Judge Bate*
with the fact that the order of court
KiwX hiwn nhpvpd
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The Lampasas Daily Leader. (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 14, No. 199, Ed. 1 Saturday, October 27, 1917, newspaper, October 27, 1917; Lampasas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth906403/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Lampasas Public Library.