PART 2 OF 3 MAY 15 - 17, 2019 "BETTER SHUT YOUR MOUTHS" -- THE YEAR 1919

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018-19

May 15-17, 2019

"BETTER SHUT YOUR MOUTHS"

ABOVE – The peace of Fox Island. Capra photo taken from the ruins of the Kent cabin. The last sentence Rockwell Kent writes in Wilderness – Ah God,- and now the world again! – is not without special significance. He has experienced 1919 – that world he returned to – as he completes the final draft of his book which hit the bookstores in 1920 to coincide with a show of his Alaska paintings.

Rockwell Kent is most likely getting some of this information about 1919 world and national events on his visits to town. The Seward Gateway provides good coverage; most of the front page consists of these stories, and another full page inside gives briefs on a variety of events. Then, there would be the talk over dinner and entertainment while visiting the Roots, the Brownells and others, as well as general discussion around town. On the other hand, once back on Fox Island isolated from the world for weeks at a time, Kent experiences what most of us have observed when we go on vacation and ignore the news for a week or two. It can be like a strain removed from or souls, a weight off our shoulders, a realization that the fundamentals of our lives go on despite world events. Kent’s isolation on Fox Island is extreme. During those 38 days between Jan. 2 and Feb. 11, 1919 when Olson is gone, little Rockie is worried that Seward has burned to the ground and everyone is dead, even Olson. When darkness descends – to reassure Rockie -- Kent takes him to the south end of the beach where the lights of Seward can be seen in the distance. In his letters during this period Kent reflects ironically that the world could have come to an end and they would be unaware in their remoteness.   

BELOW --  Front page portion of the Seward Gateway from February 15, 1919.

Added to concerns over all the strikes, race riots, and lynchings headlining newspapers during 1919, people worried about the Spanish Flu. In her letters, Kathleen frequently tells Rockwell that the children are sick, probably with the flu. That concerns him. In a Dec. 30, 1918 letter to Kathleen he says he has told Olson he wants to be buried on Fox Island, and he'll write Olson instructions to that effect. At this point, he's written those two revealing letters to Kathleen that he's asked Zigrosser and Chappell to deliver on New Year's Eve. He won't get an answer until Feb. 11 when Olson finally returns with the mail. He's in limbo waiting to see if Kathleen believes his intention to change his behavior. He also had the scare in Seward in early December when he thought he was dying of the flu and pondered how he could deal with Rockie's care and final letters to his family. Also, by this time -- after his Sept. near death experience with Rockie on the water -- he's extremely stressed over boat trips to Seward and back.  Not so much for himself, he writes, because he occasionally descends into death wishes -- but for Rockie's sake. He can't stomach being responsible for his son's death. At this point he probably believes there's a possibility he may die in Alaska. He's already asked Chappell to look after his family if something happens to him. His moods swing back and forth to the extreme. Kent’s gyre is widening and he’s trying to grab onto any center he can – his wife; Hildegarde; his art; Olson and the freedom, liberty and beauty of Alaska he represents. 

BELOW – Rockwell’s Dec. 5, 1918 letter to Kathleen: I sat up long hours writing to you till three o’clock or after almost every night. Then the trip between here and  Seward is a strain on me because of Rockwell. I run us great risks and am prudent but he is a great care to me, he is too precious. I somehow don’t care much about myself. I’ll care more someday when you do. So last night I collapsed. There has been influenza in Seward and I at once imagined it to have gripped me and I lay there dreaming rather delusional(ly) of death. Planning my last instructions for the care of Rockwell and my last messages to you my darling and our children. And I thought of ways to show you at my death how completely every hope centered in you. I called Rockwell once to sit at by bedside and pet me a little…

BELOW – A page from Kent’s Dec. 5, 1918 letter to Kathlleen quoted above.

Back in the states, many realize the old pre-war world was gone, but few feel confident about the changes. From Nov. 1919 through Dec. 1920 the U.S. government cracked down on civil liberties. Attorney General Palmer initiated raids with warrantless searches, arrests and deportations. As soldiers returned home from the war, they not only faced employment problems but also the enormous cost of living which was 77% higher than it had been before the war began. In early 1920, it would be 105% higher. Food cost 84% more, clothing 114%. Throughout 1919, inflation averaged 14.6%. By early 1920 it had improved, but still averaged 9%. President Wilson had been struggling under extreme stress to get cooperation from both European leaders and the U.S. Congress for his League of Nations. He would not compromise with anyone. In poor health and exhausted, he traveled the nation hoping for support. On Sept. 25 he collapsed and suffered a major stroke a week later. Mrs. Wilson controlled access to him and in many ways ran the country. His League of Nations died and the public abandoned him and his party ushering in Warren G. Harding in 1920.

ABOVE – An article from the May 8, 1919 New-York Tribune.  BELOW – An article from the May 16, 1919 Boston Globe.

As the spring of 1919 turned to summer and fall, anticipation for the first Armistice Day on Nov. 11 elicited mixed feelings. People were grateful the war was over and responded with pride and patriotism at the role the U.S. had played in ending the conflict. Many still mourned losses, not only of soldiers but also of victims of the flu epidemic. The pride and patriotism mixed with sadness, anger, fear and anxiety. What had the war really accomplished? Had it been worth the horrible death and destruction? The battlefields were still being cleared of debris and bodies. The world still didn’t have precise figures of the military dead, wounded and missing. Civilian casualty figures were still in question. When officials added influenza deaths to direct war casualties, the numbers staggered the imagination. Today we know more.  The U.S. suffered 117,000 deaths in the war. Of those 53,000 were lost in battle. Over a million English soldiers died. France lost 1.7 million, Germany 2.5 million, the Ottoman Empire 2.9 million, Russia 3.3 million. But it was the flu that did the most damage. The U.S. had three times as many deaths due to the influenza than we did in the war. Between 1918 and 1920 the estimate is between 50 and 100 million worldwide deaths due to the flu. People under age forty represented more than half of those deaths. More than half of all deaths happened in a thirteen-week period between mid-Sept. and early Dec. 1918.

ABOVE – An article from the May 19, 1919 Lansing, Michigan Journal.    BELOW – An article from the May 1, 1919 Washington Post.

Many returning American combat veterans couldn’t explain their experiences to a public fed on media reports. Many suffered from what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) but what they then called shell shock. How do you describe the gut-wrenching fear of hearing the order to go “over the top;” of the choking, burning gas attacks; of the stench of battlefields littered with decomposing horses and human body parts from two years earlier; of miles of trenches and barbed wire covering shattered landscapes. Veterans had only their fellow soldiers who understood – where a grunt, nod or gaze could communicate an experience that couldn’t be put into words. After the war, many men were not the same in some ways – and much the same in ways that may not have been noted before.  A poem called “Militarism Reborn” by Edward Hope (U.S.N.) reprinted (from the New York Evening Sun) in the Jan. 11, 1919 Literary Digest – takes a humorous if and cynical approach. Parts of the poem go like:

“When she knew him/For the few short weeks/Before he Went Across

His face was so brown/And his eyes were so bright,

And he was so straight/And muscular,/And his uniform was so perfect,

With its little gold bars on the shoulders

And the heavily embroidered wings over the heart/And the shiny putees –

He was so much the Man/And the Soldier

That she forgot that the War was going to end some day/

And she went and married him.”

After her soldier-husband comes home and stores his uniform in the closet, she learns “he had his hair cut round from choice/And he liked silk shirts/With broad red and blue stripes/Or purple dots/The size of moth balls…” He wears “yellow shoes/With bumpy toes/And bright green hats/And vivid suits.” She discovers that he smokes cigars and that he says “He don’t” and “You was.” The poem ends:

         “So now/She sits at home/In the house her father pays for,/

         While Charlie punishes an adding-machine,/And she prays fervently

         For More Wars.”

(Ironically, her prayer would soon be answered. Just over twenty years later on May 10, 1940, Adolph Hitler’s forces invaded Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium under his operational plan Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). As his troops marched through Belgium, stone carvers were still at work engraving on monuments names of missing solders of the Great War.)

In March 1919 the American Expeditionary Force met in Paris for the first American Legion caucus. In May they met again in St. Louis and adopted their official name as well as a draft preamble and constitution. By June 9^th the  American Legion had an official emblem. Congress chartered the group on Sept. 16, and the first national convention was held in Minneapolis during Nov. 10-12.

ABOVE – Front page of the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune for November. 9, 1919.

All this – strikes, bombings, rising prices, unemployment, returning soldiers, the influenza and more – caused stress, anger and disillusionment.  Another event hit on Sept. 9, 1919 when the Boston Police Department struck. The public was shaken. Of the forces 1,544 officers and men, 1,117 or 72% didn’t report for work. That night, violence and looting broke out on the streets of Boston. By the next night, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge called out the National Guard, but the violence peaked and there were several deaths. Coolidge called the strikers deserters and traitors. Many were veterans. Their union responded: When we were honorably discharged from the United States army we were hailed as heroes. Among us are men who have gone against spitting machine guns single-handed, and captured them, volunteering for the job. Among us are men who have ridden with dispatches through shellfire so dense that four men fell and only the fifth got through. Not one man of us ever disgraced the flag or his service. It is bitter to come home and be called deserters and traitors. We are the same men who were on the French front. Many people questioned their right to strike but defended their right to organize into a union, which the City of Boston didn’t recognize. In the end, 1,100 striking police were fired and 1,574 replacement officers were hired from a pool of unemployed veterans of the Great War. The new hires had to report to work in civilian clothing because the United Garment Workers refused to sew them new uniforms. The new officers got higher salaries, more vacation days, a pension plan, and a uniform with an equipment allowance.

ABOVE – An article from the Sept. 10, 1919 Wilmington, Delaware Morning News.  BELOW – An article from the Sept. 11, 1919 Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger.

On Nov. 11, 1919 – during an Armistice Day parade in Centralia, Washington – the I.W.W and the American Legion had a violent and deadly confrontation. The Centralia Massacre happened within this complex context of fears and animosities that had been building for years.  When it was over, four legionnaires had been shot dead, including the post commander, a Centralia Deputy Sheriff was dead, and an I.W.W. member had been lynched. Several others were wounded. After a trial, six Wobblies were convicted of second-degree murder and two were acquitted. One was found not guilty due to insanity and two turned state’s evidence and had their charges dropped. No one was ever arrested in the lynching of the Wobbly, Wesley Everest, who was also a veteran.

ABOVE – The American Legion memorial service held a few days after the 1919 Armistice Day violence.

Five days later, on Nov. 16, 1919, John Smithkovitch arrived in Valdez, Alaska. He had been working in Ellamar, a copper mining settlement across from Bligh and Busby Island about 20 miles southwest of Valdez. The evening he arrived, two reliable witnesses heard him say that he wished he was at Centralia, Washington to help do the shooting. The people heard him say he was an I.W.W. and every man who went to France ought to be killed. On Nov. 18 he was arrested, held on a $5000 bond and appeared before a Grand Jury. The Seward Gateway reported the story and added: Deputy Marshal Reed was instructed to be on the watch in Seward and surrounding territory and make arrests of seditious talkers, of whom it is said, there are many in this section. Anyone with a last name like Smithkovitch had better beware.

ABOVE – Article "BETTER SHUT YOUR MOUTHS" from the Nov. 19, 1919 Seward Gateway.

TO BE CONTINUED

PART 3 (FINAL) NEXT ENTRY