Demonstration against Y. M. C. A., Hotel Regina, Bologna, April 25, 1919.Demonstration against Y. M. C. A., Hotel Regina, Bologna, April 25, 1919.
Demonstration against Y. M. C. A., Hotel Regina, Bologna, April 25, 1919.
As he stood facing the ten thousand excited Italians, there was no tremor of voice or limb. It was just the chance he was looking for; he was in his element; he was having the best time he had had since leaving America. In the uniform of an officer of the American army he spoke in criticism of the Commander in Chief of that army, the President of the United States.
The Bologna paper, Il Resto del Carlino, reported the proceeding as follows:
"* * * E' un momento d'incertezza, Qualcuno impreca a Wilson e fischia. Altri protestano giustamente affermandi che non se deve confondere Wilson coi populo d'America.
"E giustamente Ci resulta infatti che i rappresentanti a Bologna della Y. M. C. A. hanno a pertamente disapprovato il contegno di Wilson.
"I benemeriti dirigenti la sede Centrale di Bologna hanno publicamente cio dichiarato e itri, nei vestibolo dell' Hotel Regina il ritratto del Presidente e stato sostituito della prima pagina del Resto del Carlino nella qualle erano sottolineate le frasi salienti del Messaggio di Orlando e cancellati i punti del Messaggio di Wilson nei quali il Presidente si arroga di parlare in nome del populo degli Stati Uniti.
"Ma questo e ignorato dalla folla la quale continua a protestare.
"Alle finestre si affacciano vari ufficiali e sventolano bandiere italiane; poi il maggiore Saylor accenna a parlare.
"Si fa un gran silenzio.
"Il giovane ufficiale della Fratellanza americana grida:
"Nessun Wilson potra togliere all'Italia il diritto al conseguimento del sou diritto al diritto che i tricolore italiano sventoli per sempre sulla Torre di Fiume. Io e i miei colleghi sentiama per Fiume lo stesso sentimento che provate voi, o cittadini di Bologna e d'Italia. Togliervi Fiume e una delle piu grandi barbarie del secolo. Non disperate; lasciate che Wilson rinsavisca! Fiume sara italiana!
"E' fra un delirio di acclamazioni conclude gridando.
"Viva Italia! Viva Fiume! Viva Orlando! Viva Sonnino! Viva l'America!
"Viva l'America risponde la folla in una esplosione di riconoscente entusiasmo.
"Altri discorsi
"Intanto la prima parte del corteo ritorna da piazza VIII Agos to e i dimostranti, aumentati ancora di numero ripetono le acclamazioni dinanzi alla sede della Fratellanza Americana.
"Piazza Garibaldi e gremita. Intorno al monumento dell'eroe si dispongono le bandiere e le rappresentanze e vengone pronunciati altri discorsi.
"Parla per primo un vecchio garabaldino il quale afforma che se continueranno le opposizione per Fiume andremo laggiu non col grigioverde ma con la camicia rossa e conclude mandando un caldo saluto al populo americano mentre impreca al tradimento di Wilson; poi segue PietroNenni che invita i cittadini americani graditi e amati ospiti di Bologna a far conoscere ei loro connazionali il vero sentimento del populo d'Italia la sua fermezza nei pretendere cio che gli spetta di diritto. In attesa che quella giustizia che ci nega Wilson—conclude—ci venga dal popolo della libera America, noi gridiamo; Guai a chitocco i tre colori della bandiera italiana. * * *
"Parla di nuovo, per ultimo, il maggiore Saylor, il quale ripete il sentimento suo e dei suoi colleghi concorde con quello dei populo italiano. Wilson-esclama-ha lasciato il cervello in America; se non avvera in lui un rinsavimento dovra presto fare un triste ritorno pensando agli effetti disastrosi della sua megalomania!
"Nuivi applausi scroscianti poi il corteo si ricompont e si avviva per via del Mille gli uffici del Giornale del Mattino.
"Parla, applaudito, il college Lucchesi. Indi la folla si reca in via Galliera soffermandosi dinanzi al palazzo ove e la sede del Corpo d'Armata."
The mob was appeased; peace was declared; the day was saved, and several of the Y-men fell on John Calhoun's neck and wept tears of gratitude because he had saved their lives.
There were quite a few Y secretaries scattered over Italy who vehemently disclaimed that John Calhoun spoke for them or their sentiments. Among this number was his brother-in-law, John Cornwall, and two truculent and undiplomatic secretaries who had charge of the work with the Twenty-seventh Army Corps at Carpi.
They sent a communication to General Antonio Di Giorgi in command of that corps; mailed a copy of this letter and one written Professor Black to the American Ambassador at Rome; and, so their position might be understood, addressed a communication to the paper IlResto Del Carlino, published at Bologna, which was commented upon by that paper as follows:
"Il signor John Smith direttore regionale della Y. M. C. A. ci scrive da Carpi che, pur avendo le maggior simpatie per l'Italia e per il suo glorioso esercito, non puo associarsi alle critiche fatte da alcuni membri della Y. M. C. A. di Bologna contro l'opera di Wilson.
"Come cittadino degli Stati Uniti indossante la divisa dell'esercito di cui il presidente Wilson e il capo-scrive il Signor Smith—non faccio in Italia o altrove la critica della sue espressioni; se egli parla a nome della Nazione, io devo essere solidale con lui.
"Alla protesta del signor Smith si assicia il senor E. R. Clarke, insegnante di educazione fisica presso la missione americana Y. M. C. A.
"Diamo atto volentiere ai due egregi gentiluomi delle loro dichiarazioni, inspirate a uno scrupolo patriottico che altamente apprezziamo.
"Non vorremmo pero con questo togliere valore all'atteggiamento generosi di quei membri della benemerita associazione che nei giorni scorsi si associana spontaneamente alla protesta del popolo italiano contro la politica di Wilson, stimando che ogni libero cittadino possa, in ogni circostanza, apportamente esprimere un giudizio sullopera del proprio Governo senza rendersi colpevole d'indisciplina ne dar luogo a malevoli interpretazioni."
The letter written to General Di Giorgi was as follows:
"Carpi, Italy, April 26, 1919.
"His Excellency,General Antonio Di Giorgi:
"I have been in the Y. M. C. A. service in Italy since September 28, 1918. I am fond of the people of Italyand at all times have been justly and fairly treated by them; and the officers and soldiers constituting her great army have been especially kind to me.
"I have just had read to me from the journal Il Resto del Carlino La Patria, addresses said to have been made by certain representatives of the Y. M. C. A. at Bologna. If they are correctly quoted, they do not express my views.
"As a citizen of the United States, with President Wilson the head of the nation, I do not in Italy or elsewhere criticize his expressions. If he speaks for the nation, I am controlled by and concur in those statements.
"Most respectfully and with sincere regret, I am,
"John Smith.
"N. B.—I concur in the sentiment expressed by Mr. Smith.
"Edw. R. Clarke."
On April 26th in an interview, after the delivery of his letter, Mr. Smith asked General Di Giorgi: "What would be the punishment of a soldier who criticized his king as John Calhoun had President Wilson."
"Mr. Smith, you must excuse me from answering; I am not a politician, but a soldier." (The general is considered one of the most astute politicians in Italy.)
A major who was present said: "We would turn his face to the wall and shoot him in the back."
On April 28th Professor Black sailed for America on a three-months' vacation, a very inopportune time, as the Y work was in a chaotic state and his more than two hundred subalternate secretaries exposed to personal danger.
General Treat, Commander of the American forces in Italy, after an investigation, ordered Saylor stripped ofhis uniform, and he was sent home. Before he left Italy he was made a Cavaliere. His friends among the Italian officers, who had repeatedly enjoyed the hospitality of his Fiat, dubbed him "Sir Knight of the Highway."
He returned by way of France and attended the first convention of the American Legion in Paris. He returned on an American transport with several thousand soldiers. As he looked at these boys he thought of the vast horde returning and how in less than ten years they would rule the nation, and the idea of pushing prominently into the organization of the Legion took deeper root in his brain.
Aboard the transport he did not recount his adventures on the battlefields of Italy. He was fearful some officer having knowledge that his uniform had been taken from him, or having private instructions from General Treat, might question the value of his services in the determination of the World War. But when he reached Kentucky it would be a different proposition; he would be a rooster on his own dunghill.
He remained a few days in New York and so managed as to make himself conspicuous as one of the founders of the Legion.
When he reached home he was a zealous advocate against the League of Nations, and declared himself a political maverick until that issue was settled.
It seemed to have been settled when he arrived at the conclusion that Morrow, the Republican candidate, would be elected Governor.
Then he found time to discontinue his series of lectures on "Italy in the War" and stumped the Eighth District for Morrow—all the while having his eye on John Calhoun's tomorrow.
One of his most interesting lectures was "Personal Experiences at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto," an extract from which follows:
"* * * I have heard and seen enough to know that it is to be the final great effort and to commence on October 24th, commemorative of the anniversary, and to wipe out the stain, of the Italian defeat at Caparetto.
"For more than a month I have heard the monotonous, familiar, easily distinguished, never-to-be-forgotten sound of preparation—of the tramp of the feet of thousands of men and mules; of the rumble of the wheels of countless moving vans, guns and wagons going back and forth in apparent utter confusion from Tonale and Aprica passes down the valley from Edelo to new assignments, necessary in the organization of the attacking army of nearly a million men.
"The front line extends from Stelvio Pass in the Ortler Alps along the then Italian-Austrian boundary to Tonale Pass to Lake Garda, thence a little south of Altissimo, Asiago, to Mt. Grappa, Corduna and along the Piave to the sea.
"The initial plan of battle decided upon is to separate the Austrian forces in the Trentino from those on the Piave by a breach at the junction of the Fifth and Sixth Austrian armies.
"In conformity with this plan the action was instituted as scheduled by attacks by the Fourth army in the Grappa area, by the Tenth army on the Piave south of Vittorio, supplemented by attacks instituted by the Eighth and Twelfth armies and diversion raids by the Sixth army. The primary offensive covered the whole front from Asiago on the west to a point east on the Piave, a little east of south of Vittorio.
"Opposite the Tenth Austrian army were the Seventh and First Italian armies; opposite the Eleventh Austrian army was the Sixth and part of the Fourth Italian army. The Fourth and Twelfth Italian armies faced the Belluno Group, and the Eighth, Tenth and Third Italian armies were confronted by the Sixth and Fifth Austrian armies.
"The Austrian force consisted of sixty-three divisions; thirty-nine on the front line, thirteen in the second and eleven in reserve. A total of 1,070,000 men and 7,500 guns and mortars.
"The Italians had opposing this force fifty-one Italian, three British, two French, one Czecho-Slovak divisions and the 332d American infantry regiment—a total of 912,000 men and 8,900 guns and mortars.
"The forty-eighth British and the forty-second French divisions were with the Sixth army. General Earl of Cavan, commanding the British forces in Italy, was given the command of the Tenth army, which included the seventh and twenty-third British divisions, the twenty-third, thirty-third, thirty-seventh and fifty-sixth Italian divisions, the Como brigade and the 332d American regiment, all of whom rendered very distinguished service.
"By October 29th it was apparent, by reasons of breaches made in the Austrian lines and advances effected, that a great victory by an aggressive policy was assured.
"Beginning the night of the 30th, the enemy commenced retiring under the protection of rear guard actions. On the 31st the enemy's forces had collapsed on the Grappa front. The Eighth army had driven the enemy back into the Belluno valley and the way was open for advances to the Cadore, the Agordino and the Val Cismon. Opportunity was presented for a completedestruction of the Austrian forces in the Trentino. Whereupon the whole Italian army by general orders issued on November 1st was directed to press down upon the Austrian army as a great, solid wave of men from the Ortler Alps to the sea.
"The order was followed by the recapture of the Asiago Plateau, the occupation of Trent on November 2d, the advance of the Tenth army to Livenza, of the Eighth army to Belluno and of the Seventh and First armies to Riva.
"Although the armistice between the Italians and the Austrians was signed in Trieste on the evening of November 3d, the advance continued into the afternoon of the 4th.
"When the fighting ceased there had been an advance occupation of territory by the Italians of approximately 3,500 square miles. More than 450,000 prisoners and 5,000 guns and mortars had been taken.
"On November 3d an Italian force landed in Trieste, which city was occupied without opposition.
"It was essentially an Italian victory won by Italian troops.
"The result was the destruction of the great army of Austria-Hungary, the armistice and surrender of Austria of November 3d and the hastening by weeks of the armistice of November 11th.
"I have always felt that the British and French appropriated for themselves too much of this victory, won by the united efforts of a million men, mostly Italians.
"An army or division engaged in one sector of a great battle is prone to take to itself more than its quota of the success from the united efforts of many divisions. A division may be so placed as to bear the brunt of an offensive and by a stubborn, bloody stand stop a disastrousdefeat; but it takes many combined divisions fighting with equal valor and success under a great staff to put over a great offensive, such as was the battle of Vittorio Veneto; in result, at least, the greatest battle of the world.
"After the battle the same noises and apparent confusion of the advance was repeated; of soldiers moving north by way of Tonale Pass to the front; now far in enemy country beyond the cities of Male, Cles and Bolzano to Innsbruck; of prisoners, Austrian, Hungarian and German, taken south to labor in the fields of the plain of Lombardy, or even to the Riviera to work in the quarries and upon the roads on the foothills of the Apennines, overlooking the blue Mediterranean.
"Many feel that the final, fatal stroke to the Central Powers was given by Italy when driving the Austrian army north and east, she took more than 450,000 prisoners. More she might have had, but they were permitted to move on, a disheveled, discouraged host, witnesses to the Austrian and German people of a last, fatal defeat; they tramped northward self-stripped of all equipment as a half-drowned man might throw away his clothes, hoping to reach a distant shore.
"After the battle, in which I took a prominent part, I followed behind these half-starved, half-naked soldiers, first a fleeing army, then a mighty horde of discouraged tramps, then corraled and organized and under guard. The road was pock-marked with shell holes, which were being filled by laboring soldiers, first with Austrian dead, then stones, then earth. The way was strewn with weapons and clothing and blankets and helmets and love tokens and overturned trucks and cannon and dead horses and dead men.
"The weak and famished died by the roadside or gorged themselves on the dead artillery horses or those ridden to death by fleeing cavalry and officers. Their hunger appeased, many sat in the sun, naked to the waist ridding themselves of vermin or lay in exhausted stupor. The stench was as revolting as the picture.
"Such was the panorama all the way from Tonale Pass east, to Fucina, Male, Cles, Bolzano and south to Trent and Rovereto and along the Piave to the sea.
"Now, if you will pardon personal allusions, I will tell you how I was wounded and how I obtained the Croce di Guerra. I—, etc. I—, etc," (We will omit the account.)
As John Calhoun now called himself a Republican, his residence at Richmond in a congressional district normally Democratic, did not suit his political ambitions; so in December, following Governor Morrow's election, he removed to Pineville in the Eleventh Congressional District, which was overwhelmingly Republican, and for a lawyer a better business location than Richmond.
He built a very handsome, brick residence on one of the foothills of Pine Mountain overlooking the little, mountain city and the broad valley in the bend of the Cumberland.
He felt satisfied that after a couple of years' residence in Pineville he could procure the nomination for Congress, which was equivalent to an election.
The change of residence he found perfectly satisfactory from every standpoint, but Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor was not satisfied. She closed one of their very common wrangles, and she usually closed such bouts,by saying: "Well, John Calhoun, you have grown very arbitrary and headstrong since your experiences in the World War. I shall acquiesce since most of my time will be taken up on the lecture platform, advocating woman suffrage. I suppose I can find the place bearable during the heated term if you make yourself a little more agreeable. I wish I had married your brother-in-law, John Cornwall, when he asked me; he at least is a gentleman."
I believe it is Victor Hugo who declares sixty the age of adventure. To the regret of many an adventurous soul past forty-five, this view was not shared by those organizing Uncle Sam's oversea fighting force, and these men, regardless of physical fitness, found their opportunities limited to camp-follower service in the capacity of Red Cross, K. C. or Y. M. C. A. worker.
So John Cornwall, Y. M. C. A. worker, in due course arrived at Bologna and was assigned for service with the Seventh Italian army, located in the head of the Val Camonica and holding the front line around Tonale Pass and Mt. Adamello, a glacier 11,700 feet high.
This was hardly a satisfactory winter assignment, as fuel was scarce and the icy winds and Austrian guns kept him burrowed in the chiseled caverns of the dolomite peaks like a prairie dog in winter quarters until the first of November, when Tonale Pass, which had been in possession of the Austrians for several years, was crossed and the advance made into the Trentino, followed by the surrender of the Austrian armies and the Italian-Austrian armistice of November 3-4th.
Then, after following the advancing army several days towards Innsbruck, he returned to Pontagna and a winter in the Alpine snow fields, where, above nine thousand feet, you find the arctic ptarmigan and perpetual snow, where the telephone lines occasionally fail to function because under snows, and the magnificent mountain roads approaching the passes are closed for several months by deep snows, despite a struggle to keep open anarrow trail with snow plows on which, if you meet another vehicle, all hands shovel snow for an hour, making room to pass.
There nothing was to be seen except snow and scenery and soldiers and guns and snow dogs.
The Mt. Adamello snow or sled dogs are a cross between the Canadian and Russian husky, big, white, woolly, impressive war veterans, snarling and snapping at one another and their keepers, barking little, knowing that silence is salvation. White and hard to see, they are sent between lines into territory where nothing living and seen can live.
These dogs are allowed half the rations of a soldier; are marked with indelible ink on the pink skin inside the ear; and a pair, with apparent ease, draw a sled load of three hundred pounds.
It would be hard to picture John's loneliness that winter. Though the officers and soldiers were most kind, he did not speak Italian and none of the officers in the mess to which he was assigned spoke English. At first he could not ask for a piece of bread; but the service was excellent and his wants were anticipated. Bearing in mind their example and kindness, he made up his mind always to be kind to any foreigner he might meet when he returned home.
He longed for someone to talk with; and when his work was done he would walk out upon the mountain side in the bright winter sunlight of those great heights and hold an imaginary conversation with his wife or little son, and come home whistling and happy.
There were no books to read. He was left alone with his thoughts which, though sometimes sad and lonely, were never unhappy ones. These six months of silenceand thought changed his disposition. He grew older in spirit. He acquired a habit of silence he never outgrew; of introspective reflection, such as the old have who sit silently in the chimney corner.
In early March, he received word of the death of his mother. He was not surprised, and, though he loved her very much, was not overly grieved by it. She had led a useful, unselfish, happy life; she was old and for several years had been losing her vitality without apparent pain. Her life had been a peaceful one; she expected the peace of the righteous after death; she believed those of her family she left behind would be happy. John looked upon her going as a vanishing from sight merely. She seemed in an adjoining room or near place; a little too far away to see or hear, but near enough to feel her presence and love.
Just when it seemed that winter was the perpetual season, when his fingers were swollen and discolored by the cold and he had forgotten how it felt to be warm unless in bed or shoveling snow, the valley below took on emerald tints and the snow line crept up the mountain.
Then John thought, "the hill country will be fine this summer;" but he was told to come out of his dolomite burrow and dwell in a tent with the Arabs in Tripolitania for the summer. A place so near the equator that his shadow at noon was hid by a none too prominent stomach; where the thermometer feels comfortable and perfectly at home at 130 in the shade and where the snow dogs of his winter home were replaced by the camel, the only reliable conveyance in the summer.
The Bedouin, the Tuaregs and some of the blacks, ride the camel with ease and dignity; but an Englishman, Italian or American on a camel looks and feels wholly outof place, and at the end of a day's journey is an object of pity and a subject for soothing lotions.
The impression that John Cornwall formed of Tripoli was that it was a vastly overcrowded city, due to a host of visiting and trading natives and the more than ten thousand soldiers, at that time, quartered in the city.
The blue Mediterranean, the white beach, the brilliancy of the sun, the palm trees and the crescent city, in the main of cement or plaster buildings, with flat or beehive roofs, all white except an occasional red or green tiled one, merely emphasizing by contrast the uniformity of the building color; make an interesting picture.
The varieties of nationality, costume and color are striking in the extreme. Here are seen men and women, white, brown, yellow, black and shades and combinations of two or all. Here are youthful forms, graceful and like living bits of ebony or bronze; antiques weatherworn and wind-dried, who when asleep upon the sidewalk, which is quite the custom, look like recently disentombed mummies; old and wrinkled women with hair dyed a brilliant red; Italian soldiers in the national green uniform; native or colonial troops in khaki; some native regiments and police in vivid blue or brown with red fez topped with a huge yellow tassel; beggars and children with little more than a breech cloth; women with faces covered and breasts and limbs uncovered; women wrapped as ghosts, with just the feet showing and one eye peeping and twinkling, encircled about the middle with many folds of cloth; the medicine or dance man in his costume of rags, crane heads and feathers, with a girdle of jangling tin and bones, his little drum with curved sticks, his dance and music the convulsions and noises of a stupid beggar; and many, very many, blind;—who seem to haveno home but the sidewalk, where you see them asleep at any time, day or night, waiting in darkness for alms and the judgment day.
A certain sect shave the head and grow a crown lock, Chinaman style, except it is unplatted. The blessed dead must not be denied by the hands of the living, so the lock is left to handle the corpse.
The chief business is fighting. The chief export, a desert grass used in the manufacture of a fine paper. Business is stagnant, as the war between the Italians and the Arabs shifted barter by caravan with the interior to the British colony on the east and the French on the west.
Each trade or business is segregated or localized. The jewelers, an apparently thrifty lot and mostly Turkish Jews, are bunched on a street near one of the hotels.
The meat market is quite interesting if you can stand the smell. The natives eat the whole carcass.
The milkman, morning and evening, calls at the door of his customer with his goods in the original package. The goats are more docile and better behaved than the children. They stand and deliver the quantity demanded. There is neither chance for nor great economy in adulteration—water is too scarce. It is brought to the city mule-back in porous jars. You can have your milk from the black, white or brown nanny as desired. A goat is a respected member of the family and his odor by comparison not offensive.
Never after four months in Tripolitania did John laugh at the Englishman who carried his tub with him. He is an experienced traveler and knows what he is about. A cold bath cost John $1.50. The Bedouins and Tuaregs are proud, aristocratic, heroic-looking people; but theybathe in the sand much as a mother hen dusts herself in a neighbor's flower bed.
John Cornwall was forced to go fifty miles south of Tripoli to Azizia in the desert, where he found the thermometer 130 in the shade. At another time when he went to Zavia, he found six had recently died of the bubonic plague.
In this land of heat, of blindness, of leprosy, of flies, of fleas and sandstorms, where the sun goes down red as the wounds of the slain, he was required as regional director of a district seven hundred by sixty miles to visit some thirty case del soldato, (houses of the soldier) in any manner the gods of opportunity presented.
It was necessary to get something that beat the coast line vessels, which with oriental slowness and uncertainty of schedule visited the coast hamlets. A mule would not answer; a truck was furnished by the army but almost impossible; a camel was too hard on the backbone; besides at certain seasons they are vicious as a Hun and unless muzzled will snatch your arm in their strong jaws and snap it as a clap pipe stem.
In this land of rugs, where is the magic carpet? Why an army Caproni—and the Italian army, until the Fiume question arose, refused nothing to an American. So John went to the Governo della Tripolitania Stato Maggiore and was given a general permit to make his trips from Tripoli to Homs and Zuara in the Caproni mail plane.
The mail to Homs is carried on Wednesday and that to Zuara on Saturday. The planes are more than twenty meters from tip to tip and can ascend to six thousand meters; they are 18 cylinder, 450 horsepower with three complete engines, either of which is sufficient to operatea machine in case of accident. Then, the cost of building such a machine was approximately $16,000.00. They carry two thousand pounds of mail matter or explosives or ten men. The seat John occupied was in the very bow. When occupying this seat the pressure of the wind from the speed of flying is quite a strain on the neck, chest and back. Your head will be twisted as though wrenched by strong invisible hands, your back grows tender from pressure on the back rail and must be rested by leaning forward with your head adjusted at a certain angle with the wind.
The distance from the aviation field near Tripoli to Homs is 110 kilometers and is usually made in fifty minutes. It takes seven hours by steamer. The steamer follows no schedule and may return in a few days or sail on to Genoa or Syracuse or Bengasi.
The plane route in general follows the shore line. The blue Mediterranean from two thousand meters above is not blue but black. You can see to quite a depth and where the bottom is distinct the white sand looks blue and not the water. The colors do not blend—the inky black deep water, the blue shallows, the brown desert, with rare patches of white rectangular houses and the green oases of corn, alfalfa and palm trees. The palms, almost the only trees, look like inverted green feather dusters.
And so, on to the aviation field near the magnificent ruins of ancient Lebna. The extent of these ruins, great arches, portals and columns of marble, porphyry and cut stone overlooking the sea, though half buried by sand dunes, presents conclusive evidence of a former populous and magnificent city.
In the morning, when they expected to return toTripoli, a heavy fog drifting from the southwest rested over the sea, and though conditions were not ideal, they started home.
The fog, far below, covering the sea as far as vision reached, looked like an immense broken billowy ice field, or millions of big powder puffs jammed together in an immense plain. Following the distinguishable shore line they came within fifteen miles of Tripoli where the fog, with dangerous perverseness, extended far into the desert. Earth passed out of sight and they were in a private world of much space and no substance, as might have been before land and sea were formed. Far below on the cloud-like surface of the fog a circular rainbow preceded them and when the operators, thinking the camp near, descending, drew near the fog, in the white center of the rainbow-circle, ghost-like, appeared a perfect silhouette of their airplane.
Then through the fog, as cold as a winter mist, they came in sight of earth; much too close for comfort, where a little dip or swerve might land them in the palm tops, and the edge of the landing field a quarter of a mile to the right, then up into the fog again and to a safe landing.
On a day in July, they started for Zuara at six o'clock in the morning; and the higher up they went the hotter it grew. The operators, returning to camp, refused to make the trip as the thermometer registered 60 centigrade at five hundred meters, stating a ghibli was raging at a higher altitude. Five hours later Tripoli and the whole desert country south, suddenly and without warning, became a blast furnace of heat and a place of dust and torture.
Those familiar with the hot winds which at times devastate the crops and make life miserable southwestof the one hundredth meridian in Oklahoma and Texas would consider them the cool breeze of a summer twilight in comparison with the ghibli or Sahara sandstorm.
Some writer tells that "a geologist has estimated that a single windstorm across the Sahara once carried nearly 2,000,000 tons of dust from Africa and deposited it over Italy, Austria, France and Germany."
At the end of four months spent in Tripolitania, John Cornwall's contract for a year's service with the Y expired and he asked for transportation to America. He made the trip across the sea from Tripoli to Syracuse, from Syracuse to Bologna by rail except across the strait of Messina, and then in a day or so to Genoa, where he took passage on the Giuseppe Verdi for America.
As he journeyed second-class, which was the way the Y men were sent home, his fellow-passengers were in the main Italians on their way to labor in the vineyards and orchards of California. While he spoke Italian, it was too laborious and incomplete for general conversation. He had much time to study the ways of the sea, and the infrequent ships they passed were cause for reflection.
He thought how trite from use and yet how true, truer than any of us even dream, is the comparison that life is a great sea and we who journey through, as ships, that at distant intervals dot the surface.
A ship at sea, as life to many, appears a lonely and desolate thing. How much room there is for ships, more ships, bigger ships, for great convoys of ships, yet ships as a rule travel alone and not in convoys.
What of the ships?
Just now, there is passing a corporation-owned oil tanker, greasy and uninteresting. Yesterday we passed several scheduled freighters, carrying fixed cargoes tofixed ports; the day before a passenger liner, sailing by the clock, in Naples or New York on Friday, pouring out its never-ending tide of those going and returning.
But let us not waste time or thought on commercial or mercenary craft. Here is not interest or adventure or much real return on the investment, unless your aim in life is to die merely a sea captain or a ship owner. Let us cruise where the currents are strong, where the rocks are dangerous: in the frozen North or in sight of coral island or low beach and palm trees, where there is an uncertainty of return in gold, but a wealth of interest and adventure and experience.
The coral islands and the palm groves in this great sea are not in the South Pacific; nor the ice floes north or south of a certain degree; nor the swift currents and dangerous rocks near some inhospitable shore, but at home; and the ships that pass are our companions.
And the ships of interest are the barks that sail as fancy whispers in the chart room or the tramp trader, at Sidney today, tomorrow at Malta, or the derelict. And who would not rather hear and know the story of such a vessel and voyage than smell the oil of the tanker or hear from daybreak to midnight the victrola, the piano and the chit-chat of the passenger liner.
And, strange to tell, most of us when on a most wonderful cruise with everything within reach, though out of sight, because we jab our eyes sightless wiping the tears away, bewail our luck, saying:
"See I a dog? There's ne'er a stone to throw!Or stone? Tere's ne'er a dog to hit I trow!Or if at once both stone and dog I view,It is the King's dog! Damn! What can I do?"
"See I a dog? There's ne'er a stone to throw!Or stone? Tere's ne'er a dog to hit I trow!Or if at once both stone and dog I view,It is the King's dog! Damn! What can I do?"
Home again! John finds the boy two inches taller and Mary as fair to look upon as when first he married her. The house is just the same, except Mary has taken down the framed needle-work done by his mother which hung over the living-room door. He asks that it be replaced.
When John and you were boys, back in the eighties, on the wall of the living-room of many a Kentucky home, was found mother's handwriting on the wall, done in colored worsted or silk: "God Bless Our Home"; this her work went to the attic or the ash heap. These mothers are no longer of this earth.
After many months in "a far country," John understands as never before, the sort of home that mother made and what that sentence meant to her.
We have dug out the old brass candlesticks and the old tester bed; would we might find the old, framed needle-work and see again mother's handwriting on the wall.
At the close of the April term, 1923, Judge Finch, member of the Court of Appeals from the Seventh District, resigned.
John Cornwall, though the district was overwhelmingly Republican, was persuaded by the State organization to make the race as the Democratic candidate. Not that he was expected to win, but, being a strong man, it was thought his name on the ticket would cut down the Republican majority of the district and thus help the Democratic candidate for Governor and the rest of the State ticket.
Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor, at home for the summer, read his announcement in the Pineville Messenger. When her husband came home she met him on the porch.
"I see John Cornwall is a candidate for Judge of the Court of Appeals."
"Yes, I knew that several days ago. He would make a good judge, but has no chance in this district. I'll have to vote for him and speak and work for the Republican ticket in some other section of the State."
"You will do nothing of the sort. You will make the race against him. Think what an opportunity you would have while on the bench at Frankfort to electioneer as a candidate for Governor in 1927. That is the way Judge Singer worked it when he was nominated and elected. Besides, the woman's suffrage organization wants a judge they can trust, and as long as you are married to me they can trust you."
"But I want to run for Congress next year in this district."
"Can't you see further than the end of your nose. You have been in Congress; there's nothing in that for you. You better let that drop. If you listen to me you will be elected Governor in 1927 if the Republicans win."
"But John is my brother-in-law; he's a much better lawyer and would make a good judge."
"When did they begin electing good lawyers as Judges of the Court of Appeals? You are standard judicial timber. And when did you develop such a sentimental family streak? You have not been to see your mother since you returned from Italy in 1919."
"Well, I will go down to Louisville and see what Searcy Chilton has to say about it. Let's have dinner."
Several days later he called on Searcy Chilton. After waiting a short while he was admitted to his private office. "Well! Hello Saylor! When did you get in? What do you want? How are things going in the Eleventh this fall? We must have thirty-five thousand in that district."
"I want the nomination for Judge of the Court of Appeals in the Seventh District."
"Against your brother-in-law?"
"Yes, he didn't consult me before he announced."
"You are too late. We have promised that to Judge Kash; though from the way he's shelling out, he had better change his name to Judge Tight Wad. Your nomination would hold some votes which otherwise Cornwall would swing for the State ticket. How do you stand with the miners? If I give you the nomination what will you do for the State ticket?"
"I will give five thousand dollars and finance my own campaign. I'm all right with the miners, if I do say so myself."
"Well, I will think about it and if my answer is favorable your announcement will be in the Sunday Post. If you see the announcement bring me down that five thousand in cash next week. I want no checks. No one need know what is spent this year. Goodbye. Call again when you come to town."
"In the Sunday Post Colonel Saylor read an excellent biography of himself, coupled with a declaration that he was a candidate for Judge of the Court of Appeals in the Seventh District, and was said to have the backing of the Republican State organization. Though, when Mr. Searcy Chilton was called up and asked, he stated; 'The organization has adopted an unbreakable policy of hands off in the district, and local races.'"
In due course, Colonel Saylor and John Cornwall were each nominated and entered upon an active campaign of the twenty-seven counties of the district.
In the beginning of the campaign it looked as though Colonel Saylor would be overwhelmingly elected. While nine-tenths of the lawyers favored Cornwall's election, Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor was making an active canvass and lining up the women in her husband's behalf; Luigi Poggi and several other miners were organizing Saylor clubs among the miners; and a majority of the American Legion, of course, favored the election of one of their charter members.
Slowly sentiment began to shift in favor of Cornwall. Some of the members of the Legion insisted that Colonel Saylor as a candidate was using his connection with their organization too strongly. He made an egregiousblunder in an address to the Clear Creek miners and when his speech was reported he lost many votes.
Some of the lawyers in the face of his almost certain election, knowing that after his qualification, he would even scores with them, charged that he was unfit for the place; and that the politicians of the State would no longer permit a good lawyer to be elected Judge of that court.
Colonel Craddock, a retired lawyer of the local bar at Pineville, and eighty-three years old, published a statement in opposition to Saylor's candidacy. He said in part;
"Though an old man I am not a worshiper of ancientism. I think I can give to present-day men credit where credit is due. But when you are old and experience has taught you that no one is infallible and that every one at times is weak and therefore you should judge your neighbor compassionately, it has also given you the power to discriminate between the false and the true and to see through the shams of life with accurate insight.
"Exercising this faculty which comes with the loss of others, as the sense of touch is developed in the blind, and guided by it, though a Republican, I am forced to oppose the candidacy of J. C. Saylor as Judge of the Court of Appeals and advocate that of his opponent John Cornwall, a Democrat.
"In the election of a Judge, the standard of measurement of the conscientious voter should be one of fitness only.
"Shall not the Judge do right? And how can he do right if he is a crook?
"Shall not the Judge interpret the law with wisdomand understanding? And how can he do that if he is a fool?
"Shall not the Judge be free? And how can a coward or a tool, worn blunt in crooked service, be free or cut straight and true?
"What an execration when a Judge is a Jeffries and what a benediction when he is a Marshall or a White.
"A Judge's mind must be open to argument and he must have power to discern between the false and the true.
"The Lord, the First and Last Judge, alone will be able to set some judgments straight and straighten some judges. He in majesty and power upholds the law, which is never broken. It is man who is broken by the law.
"The great curse of Kentucky is that many of her Judges belong to that very common species of Judge. Judex apiarius. Their capacity for hearing the facts and declaring the right is blurred by the buzz of the bee of political aspiration and self-interest.
"A Judge who belongs to this species can usually be classed as of the family Judex timidus,—those whose ears are so great that they can never lift them from the ground, and when a mosquito hums in Covington their dreams of peace are disturbed in Frankfort.
"They are the secret enemies of the law's certainty and stability. Their decisions shift with the tide of popular opinion. They wash their hands like Pilate (not always to cleanliness) and permit the crucifixion.
"A year or so ago, Chief Justice Grinder, in an address before a men's Bible class, declared that the Court of Appeals upon an appeal to it would have reversed the Sanhedrin. There are more than several lawyers in this State, who, knowing the members of that court, havegrave doubts about it, had that court sat in Jerusalem and the appeal been prosecuted A. D. 30.
"Saylor is worse. He would make a judicial tool. Judicial tools have generally been in politics for a number of years and, preceding their judicial service, a member of the legislature for several terms, like Saylor, where they are first tried out. This judge expects one day to be Governor and is willing to do any thing to further his political ambitions. By some hook or crook or pull he succeeded in obtaining his license to practice law and since has appeared in court occasionally; generally when a jury was to be influenced.
"He is more or less a wanderer and, when he changes his residence, changes his politics and votes with the majority. He is usually a candidate for office and spends more time on the street than in his office.
"He is a mere pawn on the political chess-board and his master occasionally has him elected to office. Then the master tells him how to decide, not all, but certain cases.
"His opinions are generally misstatements of the facts presented by the record and never mention an authority cited by counsel opposing his master's decree. His references are not complimentary to such counsel, his purpose being to make him appear ridiculous and to forestall all hope for modification by a petition for rehearing, because it is barely possible that another judge may then read the record, though it is not considered judicial etiquette to do so.
"He being the only judge who has read the record, is careful to so state the facts in the consultation room as to meet with no dissent from his colleagues or to make them curious about the record.
"All of these demerits Saylor has in full measure. He is known to all of you. He lives in this county and the county is none the better for it. He defends every bootlegger and crook that is indicted and they will vote for him as they respond to his demands when they are chosen for jury service, which is entirely too frequent for the administration of justice.
"Thirty years ago no man of his reputation and limited capacity would have dared run for this high office. Now it is another thing. If elected he will find some of his associates not much better qualified, so far as knowledge of the law is concerned. Instead of being learned in the law they are politicians, who know their district and how to fool the people.
"Conditions force comparisons. Until the Civil War, opinions rendered by the Court of Appeals were quoted and cited with respect in every State of the nation. The Court since in personnel has deteriorated. Its opinions are captious, partisan, uninspired oracles, which perforce decide the case in hand; but as an authority for future reference, so far as the reasons given are concerned, are mere chit-chat.
"When I was young, and began the practice of law, there were lawyers at the bar in this State and real Judges occupied the bench. There was Clay and Crittenden and Judge Robinson and Judge Underwood. Now who have we? Such lawyers as John Calhoun Saylor and such judges as Saylor will make when elected;—The Lord save us!"
At the November election Colonel Saylor was elected; but by a very small majority. He ran more than five thousand votes behind the head of the ticket, and in adistrict where little scratching is done. The State ticket pulled him through.
When the returns came in Searcy Chilton, commenting on the race, concluded his remarks by saying; "Next time we must throw that Jonah overboard."
A day or two before he qualified, Judge Saylor came to Frankfort, and visited the courtroom a few minutes after adjournment; he even went up and tried the chair of the Chief Justice, and found the seat was none too large. No one was present but Jake, the negro janitor.
"Jake, what do the lawyers and judges have to say about my election?"
"They don't say nothin, Boss; they jest laff."