Tt’E NENANA DAILY NEWS
Application made April 1, 1918, at the postoffice at Nenana, Alaska,
for en~ry as ?*cord class mail matter, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
“WHERE RAIL AND RIVER MEET”
Published .eery afternoon except Sunday, by the Nenana Printing
Company, at First and B Streets, Nenana. Alaska.
R. G. SouthwortF.Editor and Manager I
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MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for re-pubii-1
cation ot all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in'
this paper and also all the local news published herein. _i
WHY THE DELAY?
While Northern boys unquestion
ably have a kick vomitin' against
the war department because of the
failure of that department to make
provision promptly for the discharge
of Alaskan soldiers desiring to be
released, the blame should not be
laid at the door of the officers
commanding the various Northern
posts- not in all cases, at. any rate
Toward the end of last summer,
large numbers of regulars were
withdrawn from Alaska, leaving the
new soldiers of the National army
to look after the posts. When the
war ended conditions of travel pre
vented the return of the regulars
and if the post companies are to
retain anything like their normal
strength it will be necessary for
many of the new soldiers to remain
in the service until relief can be
sent them, which will be after the
opening of navigation.
That is the position taken by the
war department. The officers in com
mand of the various posts appear
helpless to relieve the situation.
The boys of the Fort Gibbon de
tachment are no worse off in this
respect than those of posts on the
Alaska coast, where complaints have
been numerous.
There are many men, for in
stance, at Fort William H. Seward,
who have a right, under the regula
tions, to be discharged, and the
officer commanding the post is held
responsible because of the delay
in providing discharges. Similar
conditions exist at Fort Liscum, the
commanding officer there being also
blamed for the delay. The men in
sist that the fault is not that of
the war department or any one
at Washington, but of the officer
in charge of the posts.
In a letter of explanation, Cap
tain Howes, of Fort I.iscum, re
cently informed the Territorial
Council of Defense, of .luneau, that
“positive orders had been -received
that his ccompany was not to be
mustered out" until relieved by a
detachment of regular troops, which
be expected to reach the post within
a short time. He stated, further,
that the company had been reduced
to the smallest possible number
consistent with military require
ments. He pointed out the neces
sity of “retaining troops at the
docks to guard the properties of
1L .. K lnnl.nn L'nminnni’inrr mimmiu.
sion, bridges, docks and other large
properties.” Peace had not been
declared, he said, nor' had there
been any orders received to relieve
any of the various detachments.
The fact remains that regulations
were issued many weeks ago pro
viding for the discharge of soldiers
who have positions awaiting them,
business that demands their atten
tion, and for other reasons, and it
is not just to them to compel them
to remain iu the army beyond that
tim* The boys g%ve their services
in good faith, ready to fight the
Hun to a finish for the preserva
tion of liberty and democracy, and
now that the country no longer
needs them for that purpose, they
are within their rights in demand
ing their immediate release. The
war department should not delay
action.
There are several soldiers in Ne
nana, as members of the Fort Gib
bon detachment, who are entitled
to their discharge. There is work
for them to do as soon as they
can get out of the army. But in
spite of the war department regu- •
lation providing for their release I
upon a proper showing, they are
still in the service and without;
knowledge, even, of the probable1
date of their discharge.
LANE AND LABOR
“In my judgment,” said Secre
tary Franklin K. Lane recently, in j
a statment published in the New1
York Post, “we have no problem j
of reconstruction excepting in ijur
attitude toward things, especially)
our attitude toward labor. There'
is no cut-and-dried formula by!
which justice will surely be done |
to the man who has been thrifty and |
saved his money, and therefore, is j
a capitalist, and to the man who j
has his labor and skill to sell. Pa- i
per programs do not work. Logic:
is not a determining factor as!
against human nature. But in a i
democracy all men must have a!
living, and a good living, a living!
that will keep them from being i
hopeless and bitter.
‘The best insurance for continued
industrial peace will be the adop- j
tion of a plan by which every man!
willing to work can have work on
such needed government projects as i
the reclamation of public lands, the
building of roads and the diking ofj
our rivers, these to be used as an1
outlet in times of stress and an:
assurance that the willing will not
suffer. And in the next place we;
must try to stop the turnover in
labor by tying the workmen to the
plant through loyalty to his own
interests. This may mean a better
home near to the plant or a bit of
a farm home or a share of the
profits or a mutual insurance
against nonemptoyment. And we
must not look on the worker as a
machine which merely has to be
well fed. The new attitude is that
he is a human being, who demands
recognition, und we. may as well
know that he is going to have it.
There must be some way found by
which the distinguished service
medal can be given to the workman
in every plant; that is to say, that
distinction must come to those who
I are competent in peace just as well
as to those who are competent in
, war.”
SALT LAKE POLICE
PUT BAN ON MAIDS
SALT LAKE CITY.—"Barmaids"
in this city, even though they dis
pense only soft drinks, will not be
tolerated, according to an edict just,
handed down by Chief of Police
J. Parley White. Since Utah enter
ed the prohibition column of states
many soft drink parlors have em
ployed women to take the place of
men, allowing them to wo»k behind
bars where liquor formerly was
sold.
The custom, according to Chief
White, had developed to such a
point where he feared underworld
practices might follow.
j ---
\ We have had only four generais,
full generals, in our urmja Wash
ington, Wayne. Scott, Grant, Sher
^ man, Sheridan—these are the shin
I ing names among former command
ers in chief of the armies of the
[United States. But only the last
| three preceded General Pershing as
. full generals. Washington was- a
| lieutenant general and Scott was a
i lieutenant general. Wayne was a
major general.
1
ROTCH WRITES
OF ARMY WORK
IS DECORATED
The mail arriving in Nenana
Tuesday evening brought a letter
from Second Lieutenant Francis
Roteh former master of the Alaskan
Engineering commission power barge
Midnight Sun, who is now in the
service of the United States in
France, where he is known by the
title of Tug and Barge Operating
Officer.
“Mow that the censorship is off”,
writes the former Nenana skipper.
"1 will try to tell you of my wand
erings and of the things that 1
have run against in this fair land of
France. Not a great deal to tell,
but it may be of interest to you and
some of the boys, and while I am
at it I want to thank someone for
the Nenana News, which I see has
grown into a daily now. Best luck
to it.
“Our landing in France took
place in the rain on July 12 at
Brest. We marched three or four
miles up a hill to a rest camp (God
save the name). This rest camp
was supposed to be at an old bar
racks that Napoleon built and from
the looks of the thing 1 don’t think
that "Nap” had anything to do with
it. as it must have been a very old
place when he was a little boy,
Anyway the place was full and they
shoved us out in a small field, and
you never saw a field like that one
in your life. Instead of fences,
they threw up high dirst wal's all
around the place and divided the
place up into little fields about half
an acre each. Well, as' I said, it
was raining when we arrived, an.I
it was still raining when we started
to camp out in that field and it was
a nice wet field at that. Of course,
there were only our pup tents that
we carry on our backs and they are
far from the most comfortable
things in the world in dry weather,
and in rainy, well, 1 can’t cuss as
well in a letter as I can out loud.
Anyway we put in three (jays in
that rest camp and all of that time
it rained. Being a native son of
Seattle, 1 should be used to rain,
but the old state of Washington
never got such a wetting as the 57th
got at Brest.
“Brest is that part of France
called Normandie. We packed our
packs and got ready to leave the
third day and it was still raining.
I,ord, that is all it ever does on the
coast. Well, they herded us into
a train and while we were not put
into box cars, still they put a squad
of eight men in one compartment
that was meant for eight French
men, thojigh a Yank is a lot bigger
than a Erenchie. Our first squad
totaled 4!> feet, 2 inches in length
and they were a mite cramped.
With us of the after guard it whs
a little better, though they were
jfour second lieutenants in one com
ipartmenf. The old train gave a
|squeak of his whistles (no respect
ling French train whistles) and oft
we go. Our destination? Wefl. thal
'did not bother us a bit; anyjdact
to get out of Brest. The trair
. sturip.l 111, n hill and all of a sudder
it started buck down. 1 was sitting ■
next to the window on the bank
side of the track, and all of a sud- j
den the cut was full of Yank sol-j
diers, shouting, "Jump, lieutenant.;
There is going to be an awful*
wreck.” Well, we did not need a!
second invitation, so all piled out.;
I lit in a pile of blackberry vines •
but just the same I lit running and
started up the side of the cut. The
train had broken in two (if .you
could see the way the French hook
up a train you would wonder how
they ever held together) and had;
started back down grade and the
second section of the train was com-'
ing up behind. But they stopped
the loose end our train and tied it
together with a chunk of hay wire
and we started out once more, all
hale and happy—happy, as we had
something to do, picking blackberry
stickers out our parts that hit the
ground first. Did you ever travel
three days and three nights .in a
French train?. No? Well* then you
sure have something coming to you.
for that is Bure one pleasurit thing
to do. No place to wash, no place
i to sleep and to eat cold lunches,
i The only trouble was that we did
'most of our traveling at 'night for
! in the day they shunted us off on
some wood spur and forgot about
! us unti lthe next night, when an
engine would come along and take
us to some other place. On the after
noon of the third day we came to
1 a little place called Bologne, in the
1 Department of Haute Marne, and
as it looked like a good town to
j someone way up, they_ dumped us
| off. YVe marched up to the town,
i and then started the fun, billeting
That is an English word and they
! are welcome to it. The game is to
find all of the old stables and hen
houses you can and then see how
many soldiers you can crowd into
one of them. The C. O. picked on
me for billeting officer, and then
the troubles of my young life com
menced. There were two companies
of us, r>0d men in all, and the town
was only a small one, but by Lick
ing out several pigs, cows, horses
and a million chickens and ducks,
we managed to crowd our men in
and make them as comfortable as
they could be under the conditions.
Then we started out to find what
quarters there were for us officers
anil we sure got some dandy ones.
I had a room as big as a Nenana
pool hall all to myself and the bed
was a wonder, about six feet high
and the blooming thing had a lid
on it—regular tent pitched over the
bed. As it was late, I started to
crawl in, and the first thing I did
was to wonder how I was going to
get in without a step-ladder. Then,
again, there was a ' big overgrown
pillow about six feet square right
in the middle of the bed and I
knew darn well that that thing- was
not for my head, as the thing was
four feet thick, took up half of the
bed. So I gave it up as a bad job,
and with great care placed it on the1
floor, and with a running jump
managed to get aboard and in three
seconds 1 was fast asleep in the
finest old bunk that I have ever
been in. Had Norman Hadley’s
roadhouse at 12 mile bar beaten
a mile, and it reminded me of “Eat
em-up Pranks place, it was so diff
erent. 1
i
Bologne is a small little place,
way up on the Marne river, only
a few miles from Chaumoot, which
was General Pershing’s headquatrers.1
We had a fine time and for ten
days did not do a thing but eat
and sleep and try !o catch fish.
But not being able to talk French,'
'the fish did not >tnde>>'tan 1 what
we were saying so would not bite.
' though the Frenchman alongside of
| me caught a fine bunch. The Seine
| Marne-Rhone canal runs through
i the town and that is one thing good
II can say about the country. They
sure have taken advantage of the
I waterways and you can go nearly
'any place in France on one of the
■ canals. At this place the canal
•runs over a river; it is carried over
job a big steel bridge; and a few
‘ miles above it goes through a tun
im’1- i
Our ten days up, 1 started ror
; Paris, where we were to work, with
i 70 men, and soon after the rest < f
! the gang came along.
We made our headquarters at a
' place called Gregny, 13 miles south
of Paris, and started to work. As
there were no tugs and barges for
us, we started to do stevedoring,
and Jack O’Neil never hustled as
much freight at Nenana as we did
at Gregny, and it was the most
mixed up stuff you could think of.
A short time after our tugs and
barges started to come in and I was
shipped to Paris to take charge of
the floating equipment, with the
high sounding title of “Tug and
Barge Operating Officer.” You
should have seen the junk that we
were given to work with. All the
old junk that they could find in
England. The French would not
let us buy any barges that were
of any use; and made us take old
things that were falling to pieces.
The barges used on the Seine river
are square ended chunkers, about
100 feet long and Hi feet wide an 1
will hold about 300 tons, drawing
six feet of water. They are towed
by good tugs, one after the other,
from a log tow line. The Seine river
is a good sized creek, but they
spoiled it by so many bridges.
Life in Paris is pretty quiet now.
but along in August and September
we had a little excitment. The
Big Bertha would spit a shell into
town at the rate of one every
twenty minutes, and then on a clear
night a Boche aeroplane would sail
in and drop a love token in the
shape of a 300-pound bomb. They
never got over the city, but sure
gave some of the smaller towns in
the outskirts hell.
You would be surprised at the
small amount j>f damage one of
them long range shells would do.
I saw one hit and it only made a
small hole in the street. But the
aerial bombs sure raise hell. The:-'
are 300 pounds of high explosives
in them, and when they hit a house
they go clear through to the cellar.
The people of Paris took all the
shelling and bombing in a very
calm manner, though I should say
that thirty per cent of the people
moved away.
Paris sure gave Wilson one send-,
off, and it is one that he will re
member as long as he lives. The,
streets were lined with people and
they made more noise than a boiler
factory.
I had a little luck one night with
a barge of gasoline that was on
fire and got a British decoration
for it; the military medal, and am
recommended for a French one. I
sent Governor Riggs my letter from
the commanding general or I would
send you a copy, but as I know
how it goes, 1 will send you a copy
from memory: !
American Expeditionary Force
From—Commanding General, Dis
trict of Paris.
To—2nd l.t. Francis Rotch, Tug and
Barge Operating Officer, I.W. T.
Subject—Military Medal.
“You are hereby notified that the1
Field Marshal, Commanding-in-Chi fj
British armies in France, has, under
authority granted him by His Maj- ■
esty the King, awarded to you the
Military Medal.
"By Command of
"Brigadier General Harts,
“S. L. EDWARDS,
“Adjutant General.”
With best regards to all the folks
! in> Nenana, I remain,
, FRANCIS ROTCH,
Co. B, 57th Rgt. Trans. Corps,
A. P. O. 702
COLES AIR TIGHT
HEATERS
RANGES
OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS
Yukon Stoves and Drums
Air Tight Heaters
Any Thing in the Sheet Metal, Plumb
ing or Heating Line
Tanana Sheet Metal Works
NICELY HOUSE
With Belmont In Connection
POOL CANDIES CIGARS
AND TOBACCOS
WARM COMFORTABLE ROOMS
PRICES REASONABLE
Rate* By the Week or Month
MRS. NICELY, Proprietress
Nenana—The Gateway to McXlnloy
National Park.
Membership List
Nenana
Commercial Club
Anderson, Herman
Allred, Mrs. Clara
Brown, Jess
Berggren, Ernst
Browne, F. D.
Bresnahan, E. D.
Blankfield, D.
Bowen, J. R.
Blair, Roy
Brooker, Ed
Bennett, J. F.
Ball, I. B.
Brown, Erie
Burns, R. E.
Coutts, W J.
Calderhead, R. W.
Campbell, N. J.
Coghill, W. A.
Cooney, M. J.
Doner, Frank
Diven, R. J.
Douse, Fred
Davis, Harry
Ekeland, Alf
Funk, A. B. ' }! '"
Fisher, Joe
Flower, J. H.
Foster, Steve ,
Gagnon, Wm. ;
Head, E. A.
Haslem, H. G.
Hagan, James i‘
Hill, L. W.
Hagen, Hans
Hoey, Andy
Gray, E. B. "'r •' ,
Gilcher, W. H.
Hyland, Mike
Isabel, L. C. '"r^n
Irvine, A. J.
Johnson, A, G. ‘ j/“
Jones, Frank
Julian, W. J.
Johnson, Joseph
Jepson, Peter
Joseph, H. B. , ’ r
Koland, Knut
Ketooroky, John A.
Laughlin, E. L.
Lund, E. E.
Lehr, Q. F.
Markus, George
Mortensen, Peter -C
Myers, R. R.
Moore, Frank B.
Miles, J. H.
McDonald, R. S.
Martin, G. S.
Morris, R. C.
Nash, Martin
Owen, Harry
O'Keefe, Larry
Parks, S. E.
Pennington, G. W.
Palfy, Paul
Packer, W. I,.
Ryan, W. A.
Rosburg, Herman
Roth, Andy
Rodigkeit, Wm.
Sborgia, William
Shaw, Harry N.
Stol, Nols
Schmidt, Carl
Schaeffer, M. A.
Slippern, J. A.
Simson, Lipman
Scott, J. H.
Sellander, C. J.
Stone, A. J.
Schmidt, Pete
Smith, Chas.
Southworth, R. G.
Spira, Frank
Taylor, Frank
Tunison, B.
Thompson, Theodore
Toussaint, J G. K
Tyler, M. V.
Taylor, Wm. J.
Verhaeghe, CyrieU
Van Orsdel, J. C.
Woods, Geo. W.
Williams, E. A.
Waechter, R. I.
Henttna, Al&eka'e Interior Tael Depot