Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 251, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1916 — SOME STATEMENT FROM SUPPOSED AMERICAN [ARTICLE]

SOME STATEMENT FROM SUPPOSED AMERICAN

- Secretary of War Baker Compares Washington’s Army at Valley Forge With Mex Bandits.

The following account containing remarks made recently in an address by Secretary of War Baker, should serve to make the blood of any true American boil: “History scholors toddy took issue with what Secretary of War Baker said about the Continental army under George Washington at Valley Forge in a political speech in which Mr. Baker is said to have compared Mexican revolutionists with the “rebels” of 1775-8. The remarks attributed to Mr. Baker in his address are: T know that the Mexicans do not respect life and property * ♦ ♦ But people never respect these things in revolutions. We did not respect them in our civil wan Washington’s soldiers in the march to Valley Forge stole everything they could lay their Hands bn; took silver vessels out of the churches and soldthem to buy drink. They drove ministers out of the churches. Their money was worthless and they were just as bad characters as the Mexicans.”

Francis Wayland Shepardson, professor of American history at the University of Chicago, said: “As a matter of fact, continental money was' worthless and there is no question that the army endured a great deal of suffering at Valley Forge, but that is a tender spot in the" history of the American people. 'I wilPhave to be shown where Washington’s army pillaged churches before I will believe it. They may have jumped on an Episcopalian minister, but only because he was a tory. There are bad men in every army. I can hardly beheve a man of Mr. Baker's education and position spoke as he is quoted,” Mrs. Mary Ridpath Mann, daughter of John C. Ridpath, an eminent historian, said: “Mr. Baker’s charges are absolutely untrue. With my father I have been over all the documentary ground of the revolution and never did I encounter any instance of church pillaging by the continental soldiers. They in no way resembled the Mexican revolutionists and one who says so has ..sadly neglected his education in American history or in Mexican history or both.” James Edgar Brown, an active member of the Sons of the American Revolution and past president of the S6ciety _ of the War of 1 812, made it for the time unanimous. He said: ‘Granting that some isolated cases of depredation may be ascribed to Washington’s soldiers in their march to Valley Forge, does this give a high official of the armistration license to brand our revolutionary forefathers as a whole ‘as had characters asthe Mexicans’? The disorganized colonial government in those days was as indifferent to its defense and the welfare of its soldiers as the present administration is. Washington’s soldiers were barefooted atad without clothing. They were often without food and hungry. Some of them doubtless did forage for food, and history says the patriotic preachers and congregations in some instances willingly sacrificed the silver service on the altar of their country. Having been a student of American history, and for many years historian of the Illinois Society of the American Revolution, I denounce the reported statements and conclusions of Mr. Baker, in the main, as unfounded in fact, untrue historically, unpatriotic and un-American.”