Winning a Cause: World War Stories

by John G. Thompson; Inez Bigwood

Around The Associated Press New England circuit it must have been a great day for the tobacco trust, for pipes burn freely under pressure. From apples to dogs, from men who do little and make a big fuss about it to men who do much and keep still about it, goes the discussion between a bite at a sandwich and a sip at a mug of alleged coffee brought in from a lunch room. All the while the clock was moving along to the hour that was to say whether the answer was peace or more war.

It was during an argument, surely—for that's the stock in trade in a newspaper office—that it came. What the argument was, and who was winning it and who losing it, is forgotten now, for from the adjoining room of The Associated Press operator at 2.46 o'clock in the morning came the wild exclamation—F-L-A-S-H—The Associated Press signal, very seldom employed, indicating that something big has happened. Three jumps to the operator's side, and there on the paper in his typewriter appeared just three words: "Flash—Armistice signed." It was enough. Action replaced watchful waiting.

Not long afterward the bells began to ring and the whistles to blow. The assembling place for the celebration the mayor had ordered was right in front of the Sentinel office, the biggest and most available congregation park in the city. By that time the first Sentinel extra had gone to press, and there was a breathing spell. From the top floor of the Sentinel home everything happening below could be seen. First to arrive in the square was an automobile from Prospect hill, driven by the chairman of the committee on public safety, for he had been notified simultaneously with the mayor. Then another car came up Main street. Then men on foot began to arrive. At first they came in ones and twos and threes, up street and down street and around the corners, and then in droves and swarms. Automobiles increased in number, coming from all directions, with blaring horns and seemingly slight regard for their own safety, but also with much regard for the safety of others.

Soon the square was alive, and there will not in our time be another sight like it, for war of conquest is an unpopular business now. The flashing headlights of the motor cars, the screaming horns, the yelling men, women and children, combined to make a picture never to be erased from memory. It was great to have seen it, even though not an immediate part of it. Then the parade started, disappeared down the street, and in due time came back. Later in the day was another parade, and a larger and more formal one. But it was not like the early morning rallying of the "victory clans." Nothing again will ever be like it. A spontaneous celebration of the victorious ending of a terrible struggle that has rocked the world for more than four years has a place by itself.

While the city was still seething with jubilant excitement and the main street was getting more and more alive with people every minute, the darkness of night began to give way before the dawn of day. And it was a beautiful dawn, too. The eastern sky did not reveal itself in sullen shade, but in clear color, more calm than brilliant, more in keeping with a message of peace than of strife on earth.[1]

These celebrations were in many cases of the strangest character, the chief aim seeming to be to march somewhere in some procession and to make as much noise as possible. In one of the large cities of Massachusetts, the first sight that struck the eyes of citizens rushing into the square was fifty or more of the most prominent business men, each in a tin wash boiler, being drawn by two men over the paved street while its occupant yelled at the top of his voice and beat its sides with a hammer. Auto trucks dashed up and down the streets as long as these were clear, then joined processions or dragged behind them over the pavements four or five empty galvanized ash cans. In New York at the premature celebration, which occurred November 8 when a false report was cabled from Europe saying the armistice was signed, and at the celebration on November 11, thousands of pieces of paper of all sizes were dropped from the windows of the great buildings, scrap baskets were emptied, catalogues, directories, and other pamphlets were torn up and dropped sheet by sheet until in some places the entire street was covered by this "paper snow storm." It is said that it cost the city $80,000 to clean the paper from the streets after the celebration was over.

The tolling of church bells all over the country in the very early hours of the morning not only announced to the people the signing of the armistice, but also announced in many places church services of thanksgiving.

Some cities and towns held two celebrations beside the so-called "fake" celebration on November 8. The Governor of Massachusetts early on Monday issued a proclamation naming Tuesday, November twelfth, as a legal holiday, but this did not deter the people from celebrating on the eleventh. In Boston all the talcum powder available was purchased and thrown on people's hats and shoulders. When it was brushed off in considerable quantities, it made the pavements look as if they were covered with snow and even more slippery. The chief spectacular feature of the celebration in Boston, however, was the burning on the Common, on Tuesday night, of twenty-five tons of red fire in one great blaze. Similar and perhaps more hilariously happy scenes took place in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco,—in every great city and hamlet in the country.

Soldiers and sailors marched, reviewed by mayors and governors and generals and admirals. Speeches were made and songs were sung. It seemed at times as if everyone had gone crazy. If a person could have ascended high enough in an air plane and could have had the vision to have seen the whole United States, he would have perceived a most wonderful sight—a hundred million people yelling and singing and parading in every nook and corner of this great country. Nothing shows better the horror and hatred of war that was felt by the American people than this wonderful joy at the knowledge that it was all over; and nothing shows better how much liberty and democracy meant to them than their willingness to enter upon war when they so detested it and so much desired to see it done away with forever.

Imagine the joy on these days in France and England and Belgium with their great cities lit up again after more than four years of darkness! What wonder that the Belgian boys and girls in Ghent marched up and down the streets singing, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary," the song which was probably the last they had heard on the lips of British soldiers as they were pushed back out of the city by the foe! Meanwhile the adults gathered in groups on the streets and in the cafés and sang "The Marseillaise."