Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 134, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1919 — RELIGIOUS PACIFIST GREATEST INDIVIDUAL FIGHTER OF WAR [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS PACIFIST GREATEST INDIVIDUAL FIGHTER OF WAR

Corporal York, “Battling for the Lord,” Slew 24 Germans in Machine Gun Nest, and With Five Assistants Captured 132 of the Enemy, Including Four Officers —Was Willing to Drill, but Not Kill.

By FREDERIC J. HASKIN. In the Chicago Dally News. Nashville, Tenn—He began his military career as a religious consclen'•tlous objector. He was convinced of the need for. killing Germans by arguments drawn from the Bible. And he «cted on this conviction by killing 24 Grennans in a machine gun nest, with his rifle, and capturing, with five assistants, 132 of the enemy, including lour officers. This achievement of Corporal York, which has been called by General Pershing the greatest single exploit of the war, has become famous, but the man himself remains unknown. And surely such a man deserves to be explained. You want to know what sort of a chap he is, and what environment fostered such a combination of moral courage and physical skill. The answer to these questions is found here in the section that produced Corporal York. It may be stated In a sentence by saying that York belongs to the vanishing race of old Americans. Men w’ho were just like him in their faith in God, their courage and their straight shooting won the Revolution and several subsequent wars. Of Pure American Breed. Such men have become scarce in America now. New breeds have come In and the old breed has been changed hy changing conditions. But there is one section of America in which the old American race still breeds true to type, and more than that still lives almost as it lived wdien the Boonesboro men threw down their axes, took their rifles and went out to exterminate General Ferguson’s command at Kin g’s mountain.

The section referred to Is the southern Allegheny mountain region. The place where Corporal York was born and lived all his life until he was called to war, is a typical bit of it. His home post office is Pall Mall, Fentress county, Tennessee, about 100 miles east of this city. There is nothing at Pall Mall except the post office, find the three forks of the Wolf river, which come together there. On all sides are the wooded ridges „of the Allegheny mountains. Until two years ago it was 35 miles to the nearest railroad. Many men who went to war from this section saw a railroad train for the first time w’hen they answered the call to arms. To all intents and purposes they stepped out of the eighteenth century apd into the twentieth. That is Corporal York did. Region Wnere Clemens Was Born. All the people in this region are of Scotch, English, Welsh and Irish stock. Their ancestors came down through the mountains from Virginia and North Carolina in colonial days, and the lands have been held by the same families ever since. One of these families is the Clemens famiiy, which produced Mark Twain. He was born at Jamestown, the county seat of Fentress county. His owned large areas of land near there, which he sold and traded about in such a way as to immortalize his name, for they are still trying to straighten out the titles to the Clemens lands, and the old man’s dealings promise to furnish occupation for many more generations of lawyers. York is the “third from the top,” as they say down here, in a family of nine children, and is twenty-seven years old. His father having died, and his two older brothers married, he became the head of the family and took care of hft mother and the family homestead. He once described himself as being “a kind of a mommer’s boy.” . I He is not, however, given to describing himself at length. In this country where people never talk much unless they are running for office, the Yorks had a reputation for silence. His father is said often to have gone through a whole day in the company of a friend

without saying a word. And he didn’t mean to be unsociable, either. Corporal York took after him. The York estate comprises 40 acres of land, of which part is rich bottom land, but most is hill country. The house has one room on the ground floor, which is dining room, sitting room and all, while the loft Is everybody's bedroom. The kitchen is a lean-to, built against the house. The farm crops are corn and hay and the live stock consists of a pair of mules, a cow, some hogs and chickens. All about the place is tall virgin timber. Lived Life of a Pioneer. So Corporal York, before he went to war, lived in the one-room house in a clearing, which was the usual home of the American pioneer, and the life he lived was just such a life as his forefathers had lived for generations. When not engaged in tilling his 40acre farm he commonly went hunting. All of the men thereabouts go hunting and are good shots, but York was especially efficient with the rifle. The standard and favorite game of the section is the squirrel. Every man has a squirrel dog, and a good one is worth $35 or S4O. The dog trees the squirrel, and the hunter shoots it — always through the head, so as not- to mangle the meat. If you want to know how Corporal York learned to shoot, i try to knock a squirrel out of a tall hickory tree with a rifle, shopting always for the head. They also hunt foxes here, running them with dogs and bringing down the swift quarry from a “stand.” On autumn nights coon hunting is in order. The coon is chased lip a tree by the dogs. In the old days the tree was then always chopped down, so that the dogs arid the coon could fight it out, no matter who owned the tree or how valuable It was. Recently, owing to the high price of lumber, a sentiment against cutting down a $lO tree to get a $1 coon has developed, and this is regarded with contempt by the oldtimers as a sign of the degenerate modern mercenary spirit.

The law in this section is whatever local custom approved, and it does not approve of restricting a man’s personal freedom. This is a fact of prime Importance to the understanding of Corporal York. Every man here carries a? gun, and is prepared as a matter of course, to shoot anyone who presumes to trespass on his premises. Men Make Their Own Liquor. Every man who wants to do so makes his own whisky, keeps it in his house and drinks it when he pleases. Stills are operated somewhat quietly, in deference to federal regulations, but the revenue officer does not Intrude much. It would be Impossible here to enforce tlje Mann act, the Harrison drug law, the prohibition law, or any other law which involves opening baggage and invading premises. These people stand by the Constitution as it is written, not as it is interpreted. Their creed in brief is that a? long as a man does not interfere with anyone else, no one has a right to interfere with him. That was the gist of Patrick Henry’s bill of rights. Like most men who value their liberty, these mountaineers have a strong sense of justice. They believe in‘the proper use .of liquor by responsible persons. When a couple of bootleggers came into the neighborhood and began selling whisky to boys, a posse was organized and the bootleggers disappeared. The law was not Invoked. Mountaineer Is Religious. Next to his personal freedom, the thing that , a mountain man takes most seriously is his religion. He believes in the Bible as the source of truth, and as a guide for human conduct. In these regions the church is a place of sincere worship, a place of social gathering and an emotional experience. No doubt in all. remote regions the church takes somewhat the

place that the theater,' the movie, the parade and other similar stimulants of emotion take in cities. That is one reason why the camp meeting, with its wild crowd emotionalism, is found in all backwoods sections. It also probably explains In part .the appeal of such sects as the Holiness church. York’s father was a Methodist, and he was brought up a Methodist, but he and his mother and sisters became converts to the Holiness church. The belief of this church seems to be that If a mortal neither does wrong nor thinks wrong, he is already, in effect, an angel, and may taste on earth something of the bliss of heaven. . At its meetings there are brief readings from the Scripture, then periods of silent meditation, then shouting of great as the full glory of their triumph oyer sin and trouble burst upon the congregation, all at once. These alternate periods of silent meditation and,'frenzied rejoicing often extend far irito the night, and throw the congregation into a state of religious ecstasy. \ York took his new faith sejrlously. It satisfied some cravings of/his nature. He still carried arms. Me was still prepared to fight when J need arose. But when he heard of tip war and the draft law he realized ttfiat he faced h great crisis. He belj/eved in fighting for the right, hut he' lid not see how, as an angel on eamh, he could kill a fellow who had never as an individual done him any harp. Willing to prill, Not Kill. York and his Inothef went to S. E. Frogge, a merdhant and farmer living near them, I who was their representative in th® state legislature, and begged that Frogge try to obtain an exemption for/York. The young man said that he Z*ould never kill in war. Frogge, of coiurse, could do nothing. A few days layer York left for the first time in his/life the little clearing and the cabin f and the wild woodlands whibh hadl theretofore been all the world to Wim. He took his convictions agalwst war with him unshaken. As soon Zs he reached camp he said (that he pas willing to drill, but not to fight. Hie made his position perfectly clear t® the captain of his company. In having this captain, York waS fortunate. If he had been Imprisoned, hazefd or mistreated, as other conscientious objectors I were, he would almost certainly have spent the period of the way- in prison. But this captain was a rnan of insight. He saw that York hajd In film the making of a fine soldier, and he also saw that York was a conscientious objector by sincere religious convictions. | This captain was something of a Bi(ble student himself. He now reffeshled himself on the Scriptures, called I York to him, and set out to convert I him to war by the good book. It is said that the argument lasted far into the night, that it was audible at quite a distance, and that Biblical quotations | thundered back and forth like big guns !in a battle. But when the pale dawn came, one # mountain man was convinced that his God commanded him to I go forth and slay Germans.

Battled for the Lord. When he went home on a furlough. Corporal York, late conscientious objector, was a soldier through and through., A hunter and marksman by training, he was fascinated by modern military arms. The machine gun, with its deadly sweep and play, the vicious army automatic, the military rifle with its wonderful range add flat trajectory, now held his heart as the creed of holiness on earth had held it before. There is nothing more to tell about Corporal York, except that when he (performed his wonderful feat of shooting ?4 Germans and capturing 132 of them, he did not take the prisoners back to his own battalion, but to anI other. Nor did he report what he had Ldone. His exploit was discovered and verified byi accident. He did not hatIk for glory, he battled for the Lord.