“Many friends of Eustace Smith will be pleased to learn that he is among the few Kansans admitted to the officers’ training camp which has just been established.  When he failed to get into the first camp, he enlisted in a Hutchinson company, where his abilities were promptly recognized and he was made first sergeant.  This made it easy for him to get into the officers’ training camp, and his previous military training will be of great help to him in his new field.”

As an implant to a small town, I often find myself listening to conversations where because everyone knows all about the person being discussed, details are assumed and left unsaid.  This small item in the January 10, 1918 issue of the Kinsley Graphic had that effect on me, and I decided to find out more about Eustace.

I discovered that Eustace was the son of F. Dumont and Florence E Smith, who had come to Kinsley from Illinois in the fall of 1886.  This was the year Frederick had earned his law degree from the National Law School in Washington, D.C. (part of George Washington University today). He practiced law in Kinsley for 22 years, was elected mayor in 1893 and served as a Kansas State Senator, 1900-1908.

Eustace was born to this prominent couple on March 26, 1889.  He was a bright and adventurous child.  He is mentioned in the newspapers as being at the head of his class, performing in musicales, and delivering orations.

According to the August 14, 1903, Kinsley Graphic, Eustace and Paul Higgins, in between their junior and senior year of high school,“…started for Colorado Wednesday evening.  They will return as soon as their money runs out.”  In the following week’s paper, Eustace reported on their experience of riding burros to the summit of Pike’s Peak to see the sunrise.  The overnight trip cost $3 for burro, slicker, and blankets and a quarter for lunch.  There were 24 in the party including seven ladies in “divided skirts”.  Starting out at 3 p.m. in fine weather, it soon turned to rain and then snow.  They camped halfway up and being cold and wet, spent the night singing around a campfire instead of sleeping.  They continued their journey about 3 a.m.

“After a while it began to snow and our clothes which were wet froze and we also about froze. I thought we were never going to reach the Peak.  It was terrible!!!  When we did reach it, I was so cold that when I got off my donkey, I had to walk in the same position that I had ridden as my legs were frozen into that position.”

They warmed up in a shelter at the top, watched the sunrise on the snow covered peak, and then rode back down in delightful weather.

Eustace was one of three in the Kinsley High School, Class of 1904.  He delivered the Salutatory Oration on “Our Navy” while his father, Senator Smith, gave the commencement address.

He graduated college from Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, N. J., and in 1908 he attended his father’s alma mater, the National University in Washington D.C. where he was unanimously elected president of his class. He graduated and was admitted to the Kansas bar in 1911 and returned to his father’s law firm which had relocated to Hutchinson, Kansas.

All through his college years and his early career, Eustace was part of the social scene.  When I read of the dinners and house parties, I found myself being envious of an age when people entertained, and the TV and digital devices did not occupy all their time.  The fancy fetes surrounding his engagement to Anna Keturah Steele and their subsequent marriage on October 29, 1913 were attended and celebrated by all the prominent people of Kinsley and Hutchinson.

In 1914, the young attorney made an unsuccessful run for Reno County Attorney on the Republican ticket.  In 1916, he was actively helping to enlist Cavalry troops to be ready for immediate service in the event that war is declared against Mexico.

At the outbreak of the WWI Eustace was one of the first Hutchinson volunteers, joining a machine gun company, part of the 137^th All-Kansas infantry.  At Camp Doniphan he was commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to the 140^th infantry with which he went overseas.  This bright, talented young man was willing to serve, and the army made a wise decision training Lieutenant Smith as an officer as we will see as the war news progresses.

  Antique mincemeat tart pans                                NONE SUCH still on the shelf at Kinsley Food Pride

Every year my mother (Eloise Tillotson LaRue) made mincemeat tarts for Christmas.  I never developed a taste for mincemeat myself, but my mother had this English tradition handed down in her family.  In fact, I inherited the set of little tin tart pans pictured above which she got from her grandmother (Rosina Kirk Straw).  Mom thought she had brought them to northern Michigan from England in 1879, and they may have originally belonged to her great grandmother (Eleanor Dawson Straw).  Forgive my need to honor these women by name, but the tart tins are one of my favorite things, even though I bake cherry or strawberry tarts in them.

Traditionally, mincemeat is a mix of chopped dried fruit, brandy, spices, beef suet and beef.  The directions for one 19^th century recipe goes as follows:

Stone and cut the raisins once or twice across, but do not chop them;  wash dry and pick the currants free from stalks and grit, and mince the beef and suet, taking care the latter is chopped very fine; slice the citron and candied lemon and orange peel, strain the juice and when all the ingredients are thus prepared, mix them well together, adding the brandy when the other things are well blended; press the whole into a jar, carefully exclude the air, and the mincemeat will be ready for use in a fortnight (two weeks). 

It’s easy to see that homemade mincemeat is quite a bit of work.  Like my mother, early American cooks did not want to spend the time and effort required to make it.  For that reason, ready-to-use condensed mincemeat is one of the oldest American convenience foods and has been steadily marketed in the U.S. for more than 100 years.  In the Kansas City Times, the NONE SUCH MINCE MEAT brand boasted:

“1884-1817, For 33 years NONE SUCH MINCE MEAT has cost you only 10¢ a package. Today, with all food costs high, NONE SUCH still sells at 10¢ a package.  Same Quality, Same Price.” (NONE SUCH MINCEMEAT is still available at Kinsley Food Pride for $7.07 a jar.)

World War I had brought on food shortages. The 1916 wheat harvest had been lower than usual.  In 1917, many U.S. farmers were in the armed services which left the county not only short of farm workers, but also in need of food to feed the soldiers.  Agricultural products were getting less accessible and more expensive, as mentioned in the mincemeat ad.  The rationing of sugar, flour, meat, and other food items was about to begin.

In the November, 1917 issues of the Graphic, the Merrell-Soule Company (later Borden) advertised NONE SUCH MINCEMEAT that made a specific appeal to the American housewife’s patriotism with the simple act of baking a pie with only one crust.  They called it a “War Pie”.

Bull Durham, mentioned in the previous post, and NONE SUCH MINCEMEAT would be just the beginning of companies incorporating the war into promoting their products.

   
Wilbur Baxter, Kinsley High School, Class of 1912
100 years ago, Wilbur Baxter, had just started serving in an evacuation hospital in France.  The Kinsley Graphic contained this short item: “Wilbur Baxter has written his family that he is very well, and that if they are thinking of sending him anything to please put in a little ‘Bull Durham’.  His sisters answered the ‘S.O.S.’ by return mail.”  (February 14, 1918)

My curiosity was aroused by this item and the fact that Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco ads had started appearing in December in both the Kinsley Graphic and Kinsley Mercury. At this time, Bull Durham was owned by the American Tobacco Company.  The familiar Durham bull image and the wide circulation of advertisements in newspapers and magazine had made “Bull Durham” a household name long before World War I.

Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco was a loose-leaf tobacco, not a ready-made cigarette.  Those had been around since 1876, but men in the west considered them too expensive and a little prissy.  Even before the U.S. entered WWI, the American Tobacco Company targeted prospective smokers in a 1916 magazine advertisement by showing army officers deployed along the U.S.-Mexican border taking time to “roll their own”. The accompanying caption reads, “Wherever you find a group of US. Soldiers you’ll always find the ‘Makings.’”

Bull Durham was sold in a cotton bag with a drawstring that had a tag attached to it.  This tag was highlighted in a January 3 advertisement that quoted a cable written by Floyd Gibbons to the Chicago Tribune from the base of American Troops in France on June 28, 1917.

 “The French People recognize the American Troops by their “Bull” Durham Tags.
One common symbol of service in both the army and navy has been accepted as distinctive by the French peasants. It is a little black and white paper tag which hangs by a piece of yellow string from the left hand breast pocket of the service shirt or the navy jacket.  This identifies the bearer as possessor of a sack of a well known tobacco brand and has been interpreted as uniform equipment.

(An interesting side note about these bags of tobacco is they were typically tagged by home workers as a true ‘cottage industry’.  Women and children, sitting on their front porches or in the kitchens, would be paid to tag thousands of bags for the tobacco company.)

Later, the Bull Durham advertising headline on January 31 was, “Send Them Away With a Smile”.  It asserts that “Bull” Durham is “The Smoke of a Nation ….Note the sacks of ‘Bull’ Durham in their pockets.  That’s why they were going away with a smile.”

Bull Durham was branded as “The Smoke of the Red, White, and Blue.”  The American Tobacco Company sold all of its production to the War Department to satisfy U.S. troops’ craving for tobacco “over there”. Bull Durham was included in the rations given to soldiers on the front lines.   So great was the urge to smoke to relieve the boredom and tension of war in the trenches General Pershing himself was said to have remarked that cigarettes were more important to our soldiers than bullets.

Bull Durham made its last hurrah in 1918, when the company announced that, since it was sending all its Bull Durham tobacco to U.S. soldiers in World War I, it would suspend advertising. And sure enough, the Bull Durham advertisements disappeared from the Graphic and Mercury after February, 1918.

As you are popping champagne corks tonight to herald in 2018, a big change in alcohol consumption was being proposed one hundred years ago.  On December 18, 1917, the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.

Prohibition had been on the minds of many Americans and their elected officials ever since Carrie Nation began swinging her ax in Kansas at the beginning of the century.  Congressman Jouett Shouse (see Blog #11) was a Prohibition proponent and had spent much time the year before getting bills passed prohibiting alcoholic beverages in U.S. territories.  The Anti-Saloon League wrote the following to him:

“The victories won, in which you had a large part, are, we hope, the earnest of still greater victories in the future, when the Resolution to submit the National Prohibition Amendment to the states for ratification will be adopted, in which also we confidently trust you will have a part.”  (Kinsley Graphic, March 22, 1917)

Indeed, the Anti-Saloon League of Kansas arranged for a special train to run from Topeka to Washington, D.C. on December 8, 1917.  “The idea is to make such a great demonstration at the national convention in Washington that Congress will be impressed and respond to the demands of the organization and put through national prohibition.  It is on the way and coming fast.”(Kinsley Graphic, Nov. 22, 1917).

You might ask what prohibition has to do with World War I.  Erik Kirschbaum, the author of “Burning Beethoven:  The Eradication of German Culture in the United States during World War I” suggests that Anti-German sentiment helped to pass the 18^th Amendment.

German immigrants and their descendants formed the largest ethnic group in the United States at the time.  In 1901, the National German-American Alliance was formed to promote and preserve German culture in America.  It essentially sought to resist the assimilation of Germans in America.  At the peak of its growth, around 1916, the national organization had chapters in forty-five states, and the District of Columbia, and a membership of approximately 2.5 million people.  Kirschbaum explains:

“The NGAA was funded in part by breweries and distilleries, and the organization devoted considerable time and effort to the battle against the Anti-Saloon League and that organization’s push for a national Prohibition….

“The prevailing anti-German sentiment galvanized opponents of alcohol in the U.S.  The anti-Saloon League latched on to this unexpected opportunity to help its long-running but so far unsuccessful crusade to ban alcohol.  Purley Baker, president of the Anti-Saloon League, attacked German-Americans as a ‘race of people who eat like gluttons and drink like swine,’ and the League was able to raise doubts about the loyalties of German brewers.”

The movement for Prohibition gained momentum when the United States entered the war and anti-German fever and distrust grew.  Thirty-six 36 states ratified the amendment on January 17, 1920.  It would remain the law until it was repealed in 1933 with the 21^st Amendment.

You may have been to the theater to see “Coco” or “Star Wars – The Last Jedi” over the holidays.  The first is a 3D computer-animated musical fantasy while the other is an American space epic.  One hundred years ago, the movie fare was very different in Kinsley.  On New Years Day, an “emotional photodrama” entitled “War Brides” was playing.

On Tuesday, January 1, 1918, for a mere dime or 20¢, you could attend one of three showings at 3 p.m., 7:15 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.  Advertised as an an eight-reel film, it was playing in the newly constructed Community Theater, which still stands as the Palace Theater in Kinsley.

Here is a description of what you would have seen:

“War Brides” is an intensely dramatic story, but while it has to do with conditions brought about by war, there are no battle scenes.  A trench is shown, and the effect of the fighting upon the troops, but no battle scene is enacted.  The main story has to do with the sufferings of the women at home.  Joan, the young widow, defies the military authorities, and urges the young women of the village to refuse to become brides of the departing soldiers.  She is imprisoned, but escapes, and leads a band of mourning women to meet the King and protest against war.  Her own individual message she delivers in a most dramatic manner.”  (Kinsley Graphic, December 27, 1917)

Having a film about war without a battle scene is not the only difference a modern audience would find if attending this film.  It was a silent film.  All the dialogue and action would have been read by the audience while a local pianist played the score.

Alla Nazimova, a Russian born classical stage actress, was the star in this her first onscreen role. The original 1916 film did very well in the United States, bringing the studios a profit of $300,000, and was widely acclaimed by critics.  The film did have a pacifist message and was banned in some cities and states. By 1917 it had been withdrawn from circulation on the grounds that “The philosophy of this picture is so easily misunderstood by unthinking people”.

However, by the time “War Brides” came to Kinsley on January 1, 1918, the producer, Lewis Selznick, had edited the film to give it an anti-German slant. 

Now for a little more about the plot which comes with a Spoiler Alert.  When soldiers try to hold Joan back from the King, she kills herself in front of him. The title card on the film for that scene reads, “If you will not give us women the right to vote for or against war, I shall not bear a child for such a country!”

With that,  I will save the topic of women’s suffrage for another post, and hope you are planning a New Year’s celebration that is a little less dramatic.

Five hundred thousand fully equipped United States soldiers would spend Christmas in Europe in 1917.  One of them was Harvey Lancaster who had enlisted with Lawrence Crabtree in the Army Aeronautic Corps at Hutchinson and were sent to the training camp at Fort Logan Colorado in April and then on to France where he was stationed until March, 1919.  The Christmas of 1917, he wrote the following from “somewhere in France” to his friend W. D. West:

“We are having nice weather here at present, only a little muddy, but as long as the sun shines and is warm we can get along very nice. Everyone is writing Christmas cards at present.  The army Y.M.C.A. had some Christmas cards printed for us.”  (January 3, 1918 Kinsley, Graphic)
  Maybe Harvey was writing on card like these.

Back home loved ones were sending letters and packages to the men.  The whole community planned a big event for Christmas Eve to remember all the soldiers serving away from home.

100 years later, as we sing carols and enjoy our families, let us not forget all of our service men and women who will not be home for this Christmas.  

The first book coming up in our KHC discussion series on January 10 is “War Horse” by Michael Morpurgo. This novel was inspired by the million British horses that were sent to the trenches of World War 1.  One episode in the book portrays the horse Joey being caught in barbed wire in the no-man land between the trenches.  Both British and German soldiers called a brief truce to venture out and work together to release the horse.

This story is reminiscent of the well known 1914 Christmas truce.  There are many oral histories, diary entries, and letters sent home which describe truces that happened all along the Western front that Christmas.  The differing accounts make it virtually impossible to speak of a “typical” or “universal” truce.  Historians still can’t agree over the specifics.  No one knows where it began or how it spread or if it miraculously broke out simultaneously, but about 100,000 people probably participated in the truce.

Most recall that the truce began with singing carols on Christmas Eve.  Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade described it this way: “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words ‘Adeste fideles’.  And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”

The next day, both German and British soldiers cautiously emerged from their trenches with Christmas greetings which led to exchanging gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats.  Other stories include sharing a pig roast and having informal games of kick ball.  This Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on “no man’s land”.

But this was only a truce, not peace.  The war resumed along the front either later that day or variously on the days up until New Year’s Day.  One veteran from the Fifth Battalion, Alfred Anderson, later recalled, “It was a short peace in a terrible war.”

This break in the fighting may have been a welcome relief for the men, but officers on both sides thought differently.  They believed that stories of the Christmas truce posed a threat to the resolve and morale of their soldiers who could decide that they were not fighting the same war as their superiors.  Adolf Hitler, then a Corporal of the 16th Bavarians, said:  “Such a thing should not happen in wartime.”  He is said to have remarked, “Have you no German sense of honor.”  The men were ordered to not have any fraternization with the enemy, and in the coming years there were other small truces, but none like the Christmas of 1914.

Remembering back to that truce in 1930, one British soldier, Murdock M. Wood, said:  “I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired.”  But that was the direction history would take.  The Great War would continue for nearly four more years resulting in the deaths of nearly 10 million soldiers.

Last week people all over Kinsley had fun wearing their ugly Christmas sweaters, but in 1917, knitting items for the soldiers was a serious, ongoing activity.  The Kinsley Navy Knitting League had been formed by May, 1917 and was receiving donation of $20 from both the Knights of Pythias and the Kinsley Industrial Club.  In September they had a window display in the Edwards, Noble & Company’s store of all the garments they had made before sending them off.  (Currently, this is the location of Circle K Auto Parts. From 1915-1925 the library was in the upstairs.)

When the Navy League committee met on November 26 they reported that the amount of yarn and needles purchased in the last six months was $189.94.  All the money had been donated.  The 71 knitters sent to the Navy League Comfort Committee in Washington, D.C., 55 sets or 220 articles.  They also sent garments to local boys who were in training.  They had made 59 sleeveless jackets, 61 scarfs, and 63 pairs of wristlets.  At this meeting they decided to disband because the Red Cross was doing the same line of work (Graphic Nov. 8, 1917).
  

By fall, ladies were busy on Tuesday and Friday sewing and knitting for the Red Cross.  Groups like the Women’s Missionary Society and the Women’s Civic Club were encouraging their members to knit for the Red Cross.  The following appeared in the High School News in the November 29 issue of the Graphic:  “We have a patriotic school.  Knitting is so common during recess and other spare moments that we hardly notice it anymore.”

Not all ladies knew how to knit when the war began.  This humorous item appeared early on in both the Kinsley Graphic and Mercury.

                         She Tried Anyway
Since knitting for the soldiers has come to be such a popular pastime, many young ladies to whom the art was formerly unknown, have taken it up.  One of these who joined a knitting league, enclosed her name and address in her first contribution, and in time received the following from its receiver:
                         Got yer socks and they almost fit.
                         I use one for a helmet and one fer a mit.
                         Mabe I’ll see yer when I do my bit.
                         But where in the devil did yer learn to nit.

Joking aside, by November, the soldiers were receiving well-knit sweaters which often had a note attached that identified the name and address of the woman who made it.  Some letters of appreciation were sent back and published in the Graphic.  Here are a few:

Mrs. Turner received this note from Private Al Levy in Washington D.C.:  “Have just received the woolen headpiece with your name attached and wish to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to you and women co-workers for their great desire to help the cause of democracy and humanity rule out Kaiserism, militarism, and kultur.”

Marine Lee Crawford wrote from Quantico, Virginia: “Dear Friend, Mrs. West, This evening our company was issued a number of sweaters.  I think everyman received one.  As mine is an unusually good one and it contains your name, I am writing in thank you for it.  We have a sort of habit of comparing gifts, and can surly say I have an unusually good sweater.

Private Percy Fairbrother also wrote from Quantico:  “My Dear Mrs. Aderhold:  It is some days past that I received a sweater, to which a slip of paper was attached with your name and address.  I don’t know just how to start to thank you, but such articles certainly are appreciated by the boys in camp.  There must be a great amount of knitting being done through the country for I think I am safe to say that every man in the camp has a sweater or some such article which has been made in the homes, and I suppose the fellows in other camps fare the same.”

Private Lee Bailey wrote Mrs. Ruth Morse from Quantico:  “I am writing to let you know that someone appreciated the noble efforts which you are putting forth to make life happier for men in uniform.  This morning when I awoke at 5:30 there was a snow two inches deep on the ground.  Twenty minutes later our Company Commander was giving out the sweaters, and I received the one you made.  As I am from the west, also, my home being in Tulsa, Okla., I am not used to this cold weather, and added clothes are certainly appreciated….”

Moss Gill not only wrote Mrs. Frank Trotter to thank her, but he could not resist mentioning a very early football rivalry.  “I was issued a sweater yesterday with your card attached.  Please accept my most sincere thanks for such a useful gift.  The painstaking care and labor used in making it, is testimony of your willingness to do your ‘bit’ in this great war.  The sacrifices to be made later are made easier by our knowing we are so kindly remembered ‘back home’.  By way of explanation, I may say that I am from Perry, Missouri….My main experience with Kansa was in rooting against them at the University of Missouri football games.  Kansas has her share of men in the marine corps, and I find they take to soldering as well as they do to football playing.  Again thanking you for your most kind and useful gift, and assuring you that if I am favored with the opportunity it will be taken to France and work on a willing marine (myself).”

The librarian for Camp Funston, W.H. Kerr, answered the above headline question in the Kinsley Mercury article referenced in the last post (January 31, 1918).  “He told of one young fellow who read continuously throughout the formal opening of the library and the program and seemed perfectly oblivious to everything that was going on around him.  One soldier remarked that he was the ‘end of civilization’ after he had spent the good share of one day looking through the volumes, copying the pictures, reading magazines, and perusing several books.  So anxious to read are some of them that when closing time comes, they are forced to find other reading quarters, and some have had to resort to bath houses and in fact any place where the light was burning.”

Today, many of the books that Mr. Kerr mentioned as being most popular, have been mainly forgotten.  Because the men were being sent to Europe to fight the Germans, “My Four Years in Germany” was often requested.  It was written by James W. Gerard, the recently recalled U.S. Ambassador to Germany.  The soldiers were also anxious to know about the war they would be going to, and that made “Over the Top” popular reading.  It was a firsthand account by Arthur Guy Empey, an American soldier in the British army.  Books by Harold Bill Wright (novelist, essayist, and nonfiction writer) and John Fox Jr. (journalist, novelist, and short story writer) were also very popular, along with the poetry of Rudyard Kipling and James Whitcomb Riley.You can still find poetry by Kipling and Riley and two of Fox’s books, “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine” (c. 1908) and “The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come” (c. 1903) on our library shelves.
      

The article said that medical, surgical and veterinarian books were especially needed.  “Such books as these are for specialty work and therefore old editions cannot be used,” said Mr. Kerr.  “Many libraries cherish old books, but nothing of the sort is needed at Funston.”

Classes were taught by Y.M.C.A. educational workers at the camp.  One mentioned had 30 classes in the barracks studying current history, geography, spelling and other subjects taught in schools but at a more advanced level.  “When Mr. Kerr spoke before some high school pupils of the need for such books as algebra and geometry, etc., many of the pupils cheerfully volunteered to give up their books in order that the boys at Funston might get the practical use of the books.”

The article stated that many newspapers from around the country answered the call for reading material by sending one or five copies to each camp.  These were distributed to the Y.M.C.A. halls according to the home locations of the soldiers assigned to each.  Mr. Kerr said, “We have made it our business to find out where the boys are located as we know that most of the Kansas boys are in the 353^rd regiment, so we send what extra copies we have of their home papers to Y.M.C.A. No. 7 and we know they will stand a better chance of hearing the news from home.”

When a soldier’s time was up at Camp Funston and they were being shipped out to France, they were given reading material to take with them.  Packages of reading materials were also sent to the hospitals and infirmaries.  Libraries would continue to play a role of securing books for the men throughout the war.

As a librarian, I was interested in reading about the role libraries played early on in the war.  In September, the American Library Association called for all the local federated clubs to take up the patriotic work of procuring books and magazines for the soldiers.  In response, Kinsley librarian, Margaret W. Hills, asked for book donations in the September 20 Graphic.  “One of the very great needs of the present hour for our soldier boys is plenty of good reading material.  Throughout the nation all the public libraries are collecting used books for this purpose.  There is not a home in town that cannot spare one or more books.  The week of September 24 to 29 is set for gathering 1,000,000 volumes.  The Kinsley public library will receive at Edwards, Noble & Company’s store all books and forward them without delay for immediate service.  Let us send at least 100 books from Kinsley.  One book is not much to give, but it may do a great deal of good to some soldier boy.  Get the book now and send it or bring it to Edwards, Noble & Company’s store.”

The October 4, Graphic reported:  “Many books to go To Sammies — More than 135 Already Contributed Here, and Many More Expected.  Last week was library week, when a movement was made nationwide to gather library books for the camps.  We were asked to contribute not less than a hundred here and when Saturday night arrived Miss Margaret Hills, who was acting for the Wednesday Night Club, reported 135 volumes ready to go.  She also stated that she expected to have enough books for another shipment by the close of another week.  Good work.  The boys in the camps get awfully lonesome.  The books contributed are a miscellaneous collection, mostly new, and every soldier should be able to find something to suit his taste.”

The term “Sammies” in the headline above was new to me as a name for American soldiers.  The Europeans used it, and it presumably derived from “Uncle Sam”.  “Sammies” did not catch on, but “doughboys” did, the origin of which is unclear.  At this time, the Kinsley Library was not a publicly funded library, but a club library run by the Wednesday Night Club.  It would not be a publicly funded library until 1926.

Back to the book drive news.  In the November 8, Graphic, W. H. Kerr, the librarian serving Camp Funston 3-5 days and week and coming from the Kansas State Normal School (now Emporia State University) wrote to Miss Hills:  “I wish you and your people to know how much we appreciate the shipment of books for our Camp Funston libraries.  It is an unusually good lot of books, and came in very nicely this week in making up a library for one of our new recreation buildings just being opened.”

At the end of the month, Miss Hills announced that more books were needed at Camp Funston, and she would be collecting them to ship out that Saturday.  It was reported in the January 31 issue of the Kinsley Mercury that Librarian Kerr in an address to Kansas librarians stated the following:  “Even though there are about 20,000 books on the shelves and between 4 and 5 tons of magazines are received every week, all of these put together will not meet the steadily increasing demands made upon the library at Funston.”  He went on to emphasize that donated books should be recent, sound and clean “in every sense of the word….

Most of the 4 or 5 tons of magazines and periodicals which the library received weekly are the so-called ‘Burleson 1 cent magazines’, and a remarkable feature is that they are received within a few days after publication.  About 450 copies of the Saturday Evening Post, 300 copies of Literary Digest and over 400 copies of Colliers are received weekly.”  Mr. Kerr said the following magazines, many of which are still familiar to us today, were most needed”  Life, Judge, National Geographic, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Illustrated World, Harper’s Monthly, Scribner’s, New Century, Scientific American, Current History from the New York Times, Ladies Home Journal, Vanity Fair, and even copies of the Police Gazette.”