LIFESTYLES
WEEKEND, APRIL 8-9, 2017
Pendleton’s
reaction to the
U.S. entry into
World War I
a century ago
T
his week, on April 6,
Americans mark an important
milestone: the 100th
anniversary of the U.S. entrance
into what was then known as the
“World War.” This event forever
changed the United States, but it
can seem like so much ancient
history — unless you take time
to discover how it played out in
your hometown.
Then as now,
Pendletonians will
fi nd that the East
Oregonian was on
the scene to write
a detailed and
colorful fi rst draft
of history.
Legendary
Brigit
editor Edwin
Farley
Burton Aldrich
Comment
was in his
seventh year at
the helm of the EO in 1917. He
understood the signifi cance of this
fi rst global confl ict when it was
only distant thunder here. Aldrich
fed Pendleton readers a steady diet
of war news from August 1914,
from straight reporting on big
events like the Lusitania sinking
to human-interest stories, such as
the fi rst write-up of what became
known as the Christmas Truce
of 1914. He cleverly included
war-related features in high-volume
special editions like the Round-Up
souvenir insert, highlighting items
with a local angle, like British and
French purchases of war horses
from area stockmen.
Like his president, Woodrow
Wilson, Aldrich initially believed
that U.S. should remain neutral.
“It is not our war,” he would say,
declaring that the U.S. ought to get
rich selling its goods to all comers
and position itself as an honest
broker for the postwar. But he
clearly felt that while Pendletonians
might not be interested in war, war
might well be interested in them.
He wanted them to be ready in case
the confl ict extended a deadly hand.
War did indeed come to the U.S.
in April 1917. After a long series
of German provocations — attacks
on U.S. shipping, civilian deaths,
German intrigues with Mexico —
President Woodrow Wilson had
had enough. In a speech before
Congress, he announced that the
U.S. would “make the world safe
for democracy” in joining the
confl ict on the side of the British
and French. Aldrich immediately
got behind his president and began
coordinating and chronicling
the community’s response. The
EO announced plans for a huge
patriotic rally and parade, which
involved every civic organization
in town. Readers learned that
Pendleton High School students
were responding with alacrity.
Younger boys hastened to guard
the wheat fi elds from the German
saboteurs everyone expected, and
the girls formed a chapter of the
Girls National Honor Guard, a
group that promoted patriotism.
Aldrich urged Pendletonians to
begin conserving food and hired
the Umatilla County extension
agent to help readers with weekly
tips.
Of course, the spotlight shone
brightest on those tasked with
doing the fi ghting. Readers already
knew of Pendleton native Joe
Despain, who had gone north to
join the Canadian Army in 1916
and was already demonstrating his
battlefi eld bona fi des. Buckaroo
athletic standouts Sheldon Ulrich
and Clell Brown announced they
would forgo the remainder of the
PHS spring sports season to join
the Marines, who as ever promised
the toughest training and combat
assignments. Pendleton’s bron-
co-busters, ranch hands and adven-
turers, led by Round-Up heroes Lee
Caldwell and Dell Blancett, stepped
up to form their own cavalry unit,
Oregon National Guard Troop D.
Reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt’s
Rough Riders, they posed tough
and unsmiling for the EO prior to
their departure for training camp.
The draft would soon pull in many
more area residents, including
local rancher Robert Ingalls and
Manuel Monese, the son of an
Echo-based Portuguese immigrant.
ABOVE: A
commemorative
Round-Up
edition of the
East Oregonian in
1917 celebrates
the calvary unit
that trained in
Pendleton during
World War I.
LEFT: In this Sept.
26, 1918 fi le
photo, a U.S.
Army 37-mm gun
crew man their
position during
the World War
One Meuse-
Argonne Allied
offensive in
France.
AP fi le photo
Grover Minthorn, Isaac Patrick and
other Umatilla Indian Reservation
comrades would also join the fi ght,
serving with white soldiers. Famed
Round-Up competitor George
Fletcher hoped to form up with his
pals in Troop D, but soon learned
that he and other African-Ameri-
cans would have to be content with
bringing democracy to Europe in
segregated units.
Once the troops were on their
way, Aldrich used his editorial
bully pulpit to maximum advan-
tage. He began to teach readers
how to think about the war. Where
before he pronounced a pox on
the houses of all the combatants,
he now made the Germans the
villains-in-chief, Kaiser Wilhelm
becoming the “Potsdam viper” and
his troops “mad dogs.” Pendleton
readers learned that they now could
return an historic favor to France:
as France had helped the U.S. win
its revolutionary war, so the U.S.
would liberate France from the
Kaiser and his henchmen.
At the same time, Aldrich took
a tough stand against anyone
harboring doubts about the war.
He declared in one of his fi rst
wartime editorials that “the time
for discussion is over.” It was now
everyone’s solemn obligation to
support President Wilson and the
troops. Aldrich soon began calling
out dissenters near and far. When
maverick Wisconsin senator Bob
LaFollette offered an early peace
plan that President Wilson rejected,
he became “Herr La Follette,” the
“Senator from Germany” in the
EO. In Pendleton, a man warning
teenagers on Main Street that war
wasn’t all romance and derring-do
landed on the EO front page
after his arrest for “disparaging
the Army.” Aldrich instinctively
recognized the power of his
newspaper in wartime and would
use it shrewdly in the months to
come, reporting, educating and
enforcing the offi cial line on the
war.
The declaration of war 100
years ago represented just the
beginning of a major national
effort to get an army up, running
and overseas. Umatilla County and
Pendleton would send more than
1,000 men and women to Europe
to help Great Britain and France
defeat the Central Powers, and
their deployment would give rise to
some controversial developments
on the home front. E.B. Aldrich
stood ready with his knowledge,
convictions and East Oregonian
to shape as well as report on all of
them.
■
Brigit Farley is a Pendleton resi-
dent and professor at Washington
State University-Richland.