100 years ago in The Record
Saturday, July 14, 1917
Today is Bastille Day, the national holiday of France, and now that France and the U.S. are joined in war against Germany, The Record reports that “officials in this country have suggested that a fitting respect be paid to the French.”
The liberation of prisoners from the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789 marked the beginning of the French Revolution. As our writer helpfully explains, it also meant “the consecration of the laying of the foundation of the French republic upon the principles of the equality of all men before the law and for the burdens of citizenship, the excellence of virtue, the sovereignty of the people, obedience to the law, the blessings of freedom of purpose, press and belief.”
Trojans are urged to fly the French flag today, while local clergymen are encouraged to preach about our French ally during their Sunday services. Should neither residents or retailers have French flags at hand, “It has been recommended …that bunting be used to form the blue, white and red Tricolor.”
France has been fighting Germany, almost entirely on its own territory, since the summer of 1914. The U.S. declared war on Germany last April.
THE MOTE AND THE BEAM
A letter writer in today’s paper sounds a discordant note on a holiday dedicated to liberty, equality and brotherhood.
Up to 100 people, almost all of them black, reportedly were killed during race riots in East St. Louis IL earlier this month. “What an illustration of our boasted civilization and Christianity,” writes one Record reader under the pseudonym “Fair Pay.”
“What a pity it is that a few photographs could not have been taken of some of the actual scenes. It would have been very nice indeed to have sent some over with our troops to our French brothers-in-arms. No doubt it would have warmed their hearts with encouragement and hope to know that they had for an ally a nation whose people could furnish such undesirable proof that they were the equal if not the superior of the ruthless Teuton [i.e. Germany] in frightfulness and barbarity.”
The letter writer claims that “There is not a drop of negro blood in my veins and I am too good a democrat to espouse the cause of the black man except, as in the present instance, in the name of justice and humanity.”
Fair Pay asks, “How can we raise a cry of protest against Germany’s treatment of the Belgians or the Turks’ Armenian atrocities. Is it not a case of considering the mote within our neighbor’s eye and forgetting the beam within our own?”