Memory Monday: Fifth Week of March 1918 - BUY BONDS BUY BONDS BUY BONDS
by meep
I didn’t do the Mornings with Meep yesterday as: it was April 1, and it was Easter. So I let it go. I was not in the mood. If you want to see what I can get up to on April Fools Day …. I give you this. Enjoy.
Also, I don’t have anything to write about the Spanish Flu pandemic today (but get back to me… I may have something special in a week or two).
LIBERTY BOND DRIVES
We’re now on March 29, 1918 in my read-through of the Brewster Standard 1918.
There are no suspicious deaths reported. Again, I’m not expecting to see anything until the fall.
I have noticed that the newspaper tends to have themes each week, and this week’s theme is an upcoming offering of Liberty Bonds – on April 6.
It was on almost every page.
Kind of difficult to get away from. In an 8-page newspaper, it takes up a bit of space.
Some of it was news items, some outright promos, and some of it re-printed items from elsewhere.
RUDYARD KIPLING: IT TAKES A MAN TO SAVE
The following is an excerpt from a Rudyard Kipling speech, given in February 1918:
Now, Kipling has the reputation as being gung ho for war, RAH RAH RAH.
Well, his actual experience was a bit different. Yes, he wrote/delivered propaganda. He was more angry than anything else. Let’s look at a different part of the speech:
German International Thuggee.
At the present moment all the Powers of the world that have not been bullied or bribed to keep out of it have been forced to join in one International Department to make an end of German international Thuggee, for the reason that if it is not ended life on this planet becomes insupportable for human beings. Even now there are people in England who find it hard to realise that the Hun has been educated by the State from his birth to look upon assassination and robbery, embellished with every treachery and abomination that the mind of man can labouriously think out, as a perfectly legitimate means to the national ends of his country. He is not shocked by these things. He has been taught that it is his business to perform them, his duty to support them, and his religion to justify them. They are, and for a long time past they have been, as legitimate in his eyes as the ballot is in ours. This, remember, was as true of tbe German in 1914 as it is now.
People who have been brought up to make organised evil in every form their supreme good, because they believe that evil will pay them, are not going to change their belief till it is proved that evil does not pay. So far, the Hun believes that evil has paid him in the past, and will pay him better in the future. He has had a good start. Like the Thug, the Hun knew exactly what he meant to do before he opened his campaign against mankind. As we have proof now, his poisoned sweetmeats and knotted towels were prepared years beforehand, and his spies had given him the fullest information about all tbe people he intended to attack. So he is doing what is right in his own eyes. He thought out the hell he wished to create; he built it up seriously and scientifically with his best hands and brains; he breathed into it his own spirit that it might grow with his needs; and at the hour that he judged best he let it loose on a world that till then had believed there were limits beyond which men born of women dared not sin.
When the Veil Is Lifted
Nine-tenths of the atrocities Germany has committed have not been made public. I think this is a mistake. But one gets hints of them here and there—Folkestone has had more than a hint. For instance, we were told the other day that more than 14,000 English non-combatants—men, women, and children—had been drowned, burned, or blown to pieces since the war began. But we have no conception—and till the veil is lifted after the war we shall have no conception—of the range and system of these atrocities.
Least of all shall we realise, as they realise in Belgium and occupied France just across the water, the cold organised miseries which Germany has laid upon the populations that have fallen into her hands, that she might break their bodies and defile their souls. That is part of the German creed. What understanding is possible with a breed that has worked for and brought about these things? And so long as the Germans are left with any excuse for thinking that such things can pay, can any peace be made with them in which men can trust? None. For it is the peculiar essence of German kultur, which is the German religion, that it is Germany’s moral duty to break every tie, every restriction, that binds man to fellow-man, if she thinks it will pay. Therefore all mankind is against her. Therefore all mankind must be against her till she learns that no race can make its way or break its way outside the borders of humanity.
Tell us what you really think of the Germans, Kipling. Unsurprisingly, he was very anti-Nazi… and it’s why he had the swastikas (a Hindu good-luck symbol) removed from his book covers:
Many older editions of Rudyard Kipling’s books have a swastika printed on their covers associated with a picture of an elephant carrying a lotus flower, reflecting the influence of Indian culture. Kipling’s use of the swastika was based on the Indian sun symbol conferring good luck and the Sanskrit word meaning “fortunate” or “well-being”.101 He used the swastika symbol in both right- and left-facing orientations, and it was in general use by others at the time.102103
….
Once the Nazis came to power and usurped the swastika, Kipling ordered that it should no longer adorn his books.101 Less than a year before his death, Kipling gave a speech (titled “An Undefended Island”) to The Royal Society of St George on 6 May 1935, warning of the danger which Nazi Germany posed to Britain.104
Anyway, seems he was far more anti-German than pro-war, per se.
DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME BEGINS
Okay, I’m not going to run the other BUY BONDS items – one from a minister proclaiming that one should pray… and buy bonds. One on the minimum amount needed to buy bonds.
I don’t have the record on hand right now, but I understand that my corner of Croton Falls set local records on war bond purchases… some of this came from the wealth of local families, but also because my entire neighborhood was settled by the (German) Juengst family. The original Juengst actually came over after the 1848 (failed) revolutions. I didn’t realize that’s when so many Germans/eastern Europeans came over to our area. Kind of interesting.
A few other war-related items — one of the smartass items I sometimes have trouble interpreting:
One of the worst things to come out of WWI (in terms of man-made as opposed to the natural disaster that was Spanish Flu) — Daylight Saving Time:
First Used in Canada in 1908
While Germany and Austria were the first countries to use DST in 1916, it is a little-known fact that a few hundred Canadians beat the German Empire by 8 years. On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario, today’s Thunder Bay, turned their clocks forward by 1 hour to start the world’s first DST period.The world’s first clock change in detail
Other locations in Canada soon followed suit. On April 23, 1914, Regina in Saskatchewan implemented DST. The cities of Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba did so on April 24, 1916. According to the April 3, 1916, edition of the Manitoba Free Press, Daylight Saving Time in Regina “proved so popular that bylaw now brings it into effect automatically”.
Germany Popularized DST
However, the idea did not catch on globally until Germany introduced DST in 1916. Clocks in the German Empire, and its ally Austria, were turned ahead by 1 hour on April 30, 1916—2 years into World War I. The rationale was to minimize the use of artificial lighting to save fuel for the war effort.
Within a few weeks, the idea was followed by the United Kingdom, France, and many other countries. Most of them reverted to standard time after World War I, and it wasn’t until the next World War that DST made its return in most of Europe.
So many to blame. I’ll blame the Germans, though
Mind you, it doesn’t sound like it was all that popular at the time.
In the US, “Fast Time”, as it was called then, was first introduced in 1918. The initiative was sparked by Robert Garland, a Pittsburgh industrialist who had encountered the idea in the United Kingdom.
Only 7 months later, DST was repealed. However, some cities, including Pittsburgh, Boston, and New York, continued to use it.
Ugh, of course NYC would continue to use “Fast Time”.
Anyway, see y’all next week!