Hope of Allies; Look to Wilson

Hope of Allies; Look to Wilson

Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

WWP25339

1918 October 28

Interview given by Edward Bok to The Philadelphia Public Ledger.

Library of Congress, Woodrow Wilson Papers

Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum

World War, 1914-1918--Anecdotes

War Stories, American

Danna Faulds

WWP25338

WWP25340

English

Document scan was taken from Library of Congress microfilm reel of the Wilson Papers. WWPL volunteers transcribed the text.

[Interview given by Edward Bok to The Philadelphia Public Ledger]

HOPE OF ALLIES; LOOK TO WILSON

France and Britain Depend on President, Says Edward Bok

READY TO FOLLOW WHEREVER HE LEADS

Despite Grievances Man at Front Hold No Hatred for the Boche

‘POOR HEINIE,’ THEY SAY

American People Warned to Prepare for Long List of Casualties

Edward Bok, editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, returned to Philadelphia yesterday direct from the battlefronts. He left on a special mission in August as the guest of the British Government, and thus had unusual opportunities for observation. He was permitted to inspect the entire British great fleet, was the guest of Admiral Rodman on board the admiral’s flagship, spent three hours talking with King George, had audiences with Lloyd George and practically all the English leaders. He was received by President Poincare and was entertained at General Pershing’s private chateau near American general headquarters, and was for eleven days the guest of the British, American and French Governments in the trenches and on the battlefronts.

Mr. Bok got close enough to the fronts to find himself twice under shellfire, visited observation posts in the first line of trenches on the Du Bassy sector, went into the St. Mihiel and Chateau Thierry sectors taken by the Americans, and with his party, was the first civilian to enter the ruined cities of Albert, Bethune, Bapaume, Merville, Soissons, Montdidier, Amiens--following the Germans ten days and sometimes a scant week after their evacuation of these places, so close, in fact, that in two instances the dead boches had not yet been removed.

On his return voyage one submarine was sunk by a destroyer off the Irish coast and three others came to the [...]

When asked by the PUBLIC LEDGER to give some of his impressions of his trip Mr. Bok said:

“I saw so much in my ten weeks abroad that I can only touch the high spots and then much that one is told on such a trip as this when you are a Government guest you naturally cannot comment upon. This is for one’s guidance as a journalist and not for publication.”

The Confidence in President Wilson

“But the big outstanding fact that strikes you in England and France is the predominating prominence of President Wilson,” said Mr. Bok, “and the supreme confidence in him. He has the confidence of the people of both nations to a far greater degree than any of their own leaders. They believe in him absolutely. This is true even where they do not understand him. For example, I was in England and France both when the President made his inquiries of Germany. The English and French were visibly surprised and puzzled -- a bit nervous. They didn’t understand that kind of diplomacy. But they never doubted the President for a moment. The English and French press were back of him to a paper. Then came his second reply and everybody beamed. Then they began to understand, and with one accord you heard the President’s masterful diplomacy spoken of. I happened to be with King George on that morning and with Lord George the next day, and both spoke in the highest terms of the President. There’s no doubt about it that Woodrow Wilson is today the leading figure in the world in the minds of the English and French, and all are ready to follow where he leads.”

Large Casualty Lists Coming

“Of course, both English and French want what we want -- a decisive, dictated peace, and they believe the President is on the road to get it for them. One thing is very fine with these French and English people who have suffered so much and so long--there is positively no hatred in their hearts and souls for the boche. I did not meet a real expression of hate until, curiously enough, I landed on American soil, but that only carries out both the French and English idea that the farther you get back from the front the deeper the hatred--the nearer you get to the front the less the hatred and the more the pity. Everywhere you hear the boche referred to as ‘Poor Fritz’ or ‘Poor Heinie’ or ‘the poor devils’--they feel a contempt for them, but no hatred, and that is a lesson we here may well learn and we will when the casualty lists come in from our fighting on the Argonne sector. Our losses and casualties there were necessarily large; the country is a very difficult one to fight over, and, of course, our boys were pretty eager. They did the trick, but at a cost that we will have to pay. I was back of that sector when the fighting was going on, and saw the long hospital trains coming to the relief stations and hospital bases. We must be prepared for long lists. It cannot be otherwise. The Germans are masterly in their machine-gun skill in a retreat, and that is where our boys suffered. These lists have naturally not come over yet, but they were being assembled when I was at General Headquarters, and they will be over in time.

Frightful Devastation in France

“The devastation in France is something appalling. More than 800 villages and cities lie in ruins. No words can describe the scenes. In goodly sized cities like Albert, Perronne, Bapaume and Merville, where there were from 3000 to 4000 houses each, scarcely a house stands and not a house can be rebuilt, so complete is the destruction. In Perronne, that had a population of 18,000, with large factories and some 6000 houses, not a house stands. Two-thirds of these villages were wantonly and deliberately destroyed. Military necessities had no part in this destruction. They were mined. It was ruthless and so complete has been the work that the mind can scarcely take it in. Nothing that one reads in articles or sees in pictures give you any adequate idea of the destruction or desolation of these places. You cannot picture it; you can’t describe it. You marvel that any human force can so completely and thoroughly destroy. The work is really uncanny in its hellishness.”

Food in France and Great Britain

“The plenitude of food in France surprised me. They have more food in France than in England, and that is because England is on rations for France and so are we in the United States. The coal situation is bad both in France and England, particularly in England, and the English in particular confront a hard winter so far as fuel is concerned. In France you can only get hot water once a week, on Saturday evenings, and everybody bathes then. In England they won’t do without hot water, and so you have it all the time in the English hotels. But no open fires are allowed. All electric lights are cut in half. Sugar, meat, milk are had only on ration cards and very sparsely at that. Cream or milk to drink you can only get on a doctor’s prescription. Although I stopped in London at the Ritz Hotel, I never saw a lump of sugar or a drop of cream. Butter you can only get once a day. All jams are taboo. Chocolate for eating is not to be had. Candies are sweetless. Ice cream is served unsweetened--not very special. English puddings have scarcely any sugar in them. The English are certainly conserving, and doing it without complaint. They eat pretty stiff war bread with hardly any white flour. They don’t like it, but there isn’t a whimper. It’s war and that’s all, and everybody accepts the inevitable. They are sporty to the last degree. England is standing up wonderfully, not letting down in one phase of its life.”

“Of course, the American is the most welcome man in England and France today, and no pains are spared to show the gratitude of the people for the United States’ part in the war. Whatever feeling may have existed because of our failure to get into the war earlier, it is all forgotten now since its share is a wave of gratitude that is as deep as it is wide. The United States has amazed the people of both nations in the way it has come when it did come and the way the foodstuffs and the troops are coming is the constant astonishment of the British and French. They all speak of it as a miracle.

No American Spread-Eagleism

“One thing,” said Mr. Bok, “has particularly impressed the English and French people and that is the entire lack of all spread-eagleism on the part of the Americans. This has surprised them and it is commented upon everywhere--that they expected some jingo talk there is no doubt, and those who expected it most surely, and feared it were the American residents in both countries. Now you hear nothing but the surprising modesty of our people. I was allowed to visit the great fleet and on every hand the British officers spoke of the manner in which our men and ships came, asked to be taught, fell in with their plans and orders and at the complete co-operation received at the hands of our officers and men. The result is that our ships and men are tremendously popular and their quickness to learn is the talk of the British navy. ‘No other nation could have done it,’ they all say. Vice Admiral Sims is one of the most popular men in England, and Admiral Rodman is the most popular man in the fleet. Precisely the same is true of the army. Our officers are enormously popular in London and Paris both on account of their personality and their absolute freedom from the know-it-all spirit, and the nearer you get to the front the more you hear about the quality of our men. The French officers are perfectly wild about them. ‘They’re like boys at school,’ they say, ‘and their quickness, Mon Dieu! They are wonderful, your men, wonderful,’ and then they invariably end up with, ‘And so modest.” Our men have made a great hit, no doubt about that for a single moment and of course they are making friends right and left.”

Soldiers Do Not Get Their Mail

“The most pathetic fact with our boys is their complaints that they do not get their home letters. Some boys have had no letters since July or August, when they know their folks have written to them. I can believe this when I received letters stamped in Maine on August 24 and they were delivered to me in London on October 11. At American general headquarters they acknowledged to me that they were having trouble with the mail, but they would go no further and say where they believed the blame to be. I don’t know, naturally, but wherever the trouble is, it ought to be ironed out at once. There is nothing so valuable to the morale of our boys as their home letters, and it is a burning shame that our Government cannot, apparently, inaugurate an adequate system that will insure a reasonably prompt delivery of the soldiers’ mail.”

“There is something wrong at another point. We are asked here to put a one-cent stamp on a magazine when we are through reading it and it will go to our boys. I didn’t see one, and so I took particular pains to inquire if our boys got these magazines. Although I talked with certainly a hundred of our boys, every officer I met, rows of YMCA men and the Red Cross women, I didn’t meet one who had ever seen a single copy of such a magazine, and yet thousands upon thousands are stamped here. What becomes of them? Of what use is it for us folks here to carefully put stamps on these magazines if they do not reach our boys?”

“The Cleanest Army in the World”

“Otherwise our boys are happy--a happier, merrier lot you cannot imagine. Just smile at them and they fairly beam at you. They are known over there as the happiest army that has ever gone into the field--always laughing, always in good spirits, taking things as they come, and cheerful even when wounded. Of course, they are wonderfully cared for and looked after. Their food is of the best and in the most generous quantities, and their winter clothing is all ready for them in the huge storehouses. The quartermaster’s army is marvelously competent and so is the medical corps. You hear these two branches of the service complimented everywhere. I went into several base hospitals where our boys were. I saw them carried out on stretchers from the hospital trains, but in every case they were cheerful and smiling. All they ask for is a cigarette and ‘What’s the news?”

“Splendid health, too, exists among our boys. Of course, here and there the Spanish ‘flu’ gets a bunch of them, but nothing in comparison with the number in the Allied armies.

“Everywhere you go the cleanliness of our boys is commented upon, and the frequency with which they wash and bathe. Even in the front trenches you see men busy shaving, and to see a whole company of fellows brushing their teeth as if their lives depended upon it is funny. The French regard our boys as the cleanest army in the world. ‘They are crazier about a bath,’ said one French officer to me, ‘than the Japanese, and that is saying much. Ask an American officer if you can do anything for him,’ said this officer, ‘and he always asks if you can show him where he can get a bath.’

Cutting Out Women and Booze

“There is absolutely no drunkenness among our boys. It is nonexistent. First and last, I saw thousands of our boys and officers and I didn’t see a single boy or man drunk.

“In the matter of morals the boys are really, as Ian Hay said to me, positively austere. What one boy said to me sums it all up: ‘We’ve cut out the booze and women business. We’re not here for that sort of thing, we’re here to fight, and you can’t do both.’ At American general headquarters they showed me the latest venereal disease figures and they are certainly creditable to discipline and the boys alike. When our boys come into the camps and cantonments here out of civilian life the average number of boys infected with venereal disease will run from twelve to twenty-three in every hundred. Now in France the average runs from two to three in every hundred. You see, like booze, it is almost nonexistent. All army surgeons are amazed at the record. The French and English medical men say they have never seen a more moral army from the physical standpoint.

One point will interest the patrons of the Philadelphia Orchestra who have objected to the playing of German music by the orchestra. The day I arrived in London the London Symphony Orchestra, of which Sir Henry Wood is the conductor, announced an entire Wagner program and I went to hear it. The hall was jammed, not a seat vacant, and the enthusiasm was great, the Nibelungen selections receiving encores in each case. While I was in London four more of these Wagner concerts were given, and on the programs of the other concerts there was German music. I inquired around if any objection had been advanced by the public and was told that at first there was some, but that it soon died out, and now the German operas are given, but in English--German songs are sung at concerts, but in English--the German tongue only is barred. The speaking of German will not be tolerated by the English, but German music goes merrily on. When I asked the reason, an intelligent Englishman answered: “My dear sir, when you have suffered as deeply and as largely as we have , you won’t put the emphasis on the small details of the war or on the minor points of life. We did that when we had lost 50,000 of our lads. Now that we have lost 1,000,000, we think in larger terms. Such a detail as whether German music is played at a concert is a bit too small a matter in such a great scheme of things. Besides, we realize that if you exclude Teutonic music from your programs, they will lack breadth and variety, and we want the best just now in our music. If it is German, well, let it be German. What matters it? Such things have nothing to do with winning or losing the war. Larger matters count more, as you will soon find out.”

Col. John C. Groome’s Wonderful Work

“One of the finest pieces of work in France is the military police--the MP’s as they are called. French, English and Americans are one in their enthusiastic indorsement of the efficiency of this organization. You see them everywhere: not a member but is courteous, but firm. They question the goings of a general, and will stop his car and make inquiries as thoroughly as they will the ordinary private. To see these boys one would think that the very flower of the army has been picked out for this service. And while the splendid work of this body of men is due, of course, to its personnel, it is more largely the cause of the splendid organization back of the men. And there is where the glory of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania comes in. The entire military police at the front in France is based on the Pennsylvania constabulary idea, was organized by Colonel John C. Groome, who is today the head of the entire military police in France, the deputy provost marshal. In fact, Captain Lynn G. Adams, of Greensburg, Pa., is provost marshal of Paris; Lieutenant John J. McCall, late of D troop, of Butler, Pa., is one of the chiefs of the military police, and Captain Marr, also of Butler, is provost marshal of Tours, where Colonel Groome makes his headquarters and directs the entire workings of the military police of the American expeditionary forces. It is one of the best piece of organization in the entire army, and you see how thoroughly Pennsylvanian it is.”

A Hero From Shibe Park

“A funny incident occurred in one of the ‘front’ camps. I was chatting to a lot of our boys when one of them presently said, ‘Here’s one of us who got a Croix de Guerre.’ And he pointed to a boy of scarcely twenty-one. ‘Show him the cross, kid.’ And the boy rather hesitatingly opened his shirt and there on his undershirt was pinned the coveted cross.

“‘How did you get it?’ I asked.

“‘Oh, I just took a message for the colonel and the first thing I knew I got this,’ simply answered the boy.

“Finally, step by step, I drew the story from him. An important message was to be taken across a stretch of country that was being swept by machine-gun fire, shrapnel and rifle fire. Three messengers had started and not one had gone farther than fifty yards. This boy volunteered. ‘I see a way to do it,’ he said. “I’m so thin I’ll turn my side to them and they can’t hit me.’ And after four hours of zigzagging from shell hole to shell hole the kid not only arrived, delivered his message, but came back by the same route and delivered the answer.

“That’s all there was to it,’ he said simply. ‘It wasn’t much.’ And then a light came to his face, he forgot all about his escapade and the cross and smilingly asked, ‘How’s Connie, Mr. Bok?’
“‘Connie?’ I asked.

“‘Yes, Connie Mack. I know you know him, for I’ve seen you talking with him at Shibe Park.’

“‘You’re a baseball fan?’ I asked.

“‘Sure thing. I used to sell score cards at Shibe Park before I got into this.’ You can’t always tell who’s going to be a hero, can you?’

“Here’s another Philadelphia story. When our boys went into St. Mihiel they went in so fast that they didn’t give the boche a chance to destroy things, as is their custom. And among other things that one company took unharmed were six locomotives of German make which had flywheels that no American engineer understood.

“It’s all right getting those damned choo-choos,” said the captain, “but what good are they if we can’t run them. “ “I can run them, sir,’ spoke up one husky private. ‘What do you know about such things, Chris?’ asked the captain. ‘I worked at Baldwin’s in Philadelphia, for fourteen years. I’ve worked on every kind of locomotive that they ever built and I guess I can run anything that Fritz can build, believe me. If you will let me, sir, I’ll have these babies talking English in a day.’ And he did.”

“Oh.” concluded Mr. Bok, “the trenches are full of Keystone stories. Our boys are making good at every point. At Chateau Thierry they were the best fighters, the heroes there, in fact, and wherever the Pennsylvania Division is sent they’re heard from. They’ve named one of their biggest guns ‘Wilson’s Answer,’ and believe me when that gun goes off the answer is heard for miles.”

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