Riches of grace

by E. E. Byrum

While traveling through Canada I became acquainted with an anarchist and partly accepted his belief. I strayed so far away from my early teaching that from time to time while speaking, I would hold up my Hebrew Bible and tear it to pieces, cursing God and denying that there was a God. I really became so hardened that I almost believed in my heart that there was no God.

On the twenty-sixth day of October, 1907, I came to Chicago, and while I was speaking that night on the platform, holding the Hebrew Bible, tearing it, and ready to curse God, there came a sudden strong voice, as it were, and, to my surprize, repeated to me the following words: "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn after him as one mourneth for its only begotten, and they shall be in bitterness after him as one is in bitterness after his first-born."

While I listened to this, I thought that some one was behind the platform speaking these words. I looked behind the platform, but could find no one. When I resumed my speech, the voice came again speaking the same verse, and I became almost paralyzed for a while. After the meeting was over, as I walked toward my apartments, I heard the voice for the third time, speaking to me in stronger terms than ever. The miserable feelings came stronger and stronger. In fact, I began to look for peace to my conscience, but did not know how to find it. In this trouble of soul, no one among all the orators, Jewish rabbis, or religious people of different denominations came up to tell me how to do better nor to give me advice.

I left Chicago for New York, but could not find rest. The words of that voice never left me day or night. One night, while walking the streets of New York looking for something to comfort me, I saw a sign reading, "Men Wanted for the United States Army." At nine o'clock the next morning I went to the recruiting-station and asked for an application-blank. The man at the station thought it strange that a Jew would come to enlist, but he gave me an application-blank. I filled it out and was examined and sent to Ft. Slocum, New York, where I was sworn in for three years' faithful service for the United States Army. After I enlisted I began to look for peace; but the more I looked, the worse and more trouble came to me. In fact, persecutions from different soldiers were very bitter because I was a Jew and did not do what they were doing.

While in Ft. Slocum I contracted fever and was taken to a hospital. From Ft. Slocum I was sent to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, where I was assigned to Battery B, First Field Artillery. There was only one Jewish man besides me amongst over three hundred Roman Catholics, and they believed in making things hot for us, so the more I looked for peace the worse misery and persecutions I found.

On Decoration Day, 1908, they were playing football, and after the game they went into the kitchen, procured large butcher knives, and came out to cut the "sheenies" up. When we saw them coming with the knives, we ran into the tailor-shop and locked ourselves in, hiding underneath mattresses between the covers. They broke the door, but through Providence they could not find us. Then for the first time since I had embraced socialism I began to think there was a God, since our lives were so spared.

On the sixth of June we went bathing in the Red River on the reservation, and the boys came and turned us head down and feet up in the water and wanted to drown us, but it seemed that through Providence I was once more saved from being destroyed by these blood-thirsty men. Upon our return, we found the tailor-shop flooded. This was reported to the commander, but no action was taken in regard to this or any other case of persecution.

We decided to desert the army after pay-day. When pay-day came, I had coming to me about $200 from the tailor-shop and $13 as pay for the month from the army, but out of the $200 I collected only about $70. That afternoon we walked to Lawton, Oklahoma, to get the train from there to St. Louis. Upon our arrival at St. Louis, the other man got a job, and I wrote to my uncle in Chicago, who sent me a ticket to come to Chicago. When I arrived there, he advised me to go to Canada and said that he would support me all the time that I was there, as they would apprehend me in the United States for a deserter.

I went to Canada, but was still in much distress. Some time later I had a desire to leave Vancouver, British Columbia, and go over the border into the State of Washington, but went under the assumed name of Friedman. While under that name I looked for a position, but could not find one; so I cabled to my parents for money and two weeks afterward I received enough money to open up a little store. I took for my next name Feldman. I opened a book-store, but within three months I lost almost $3,000. Then I left Seattle, Washington, for Tacoma under the name Gray.