The Willow Times (Willow, Okla.), Vol. 2, No. 27, Ed. 1 Friday, December 14, 1917 Page: 2 of 8
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THE WILLOW TIMES
DOTS «° DASHES
WIRE NEWS OF
THE WIEK
War Ntwt.
Employing great futi • of Infantry
la aurraedlng wava under irrrifir ar
Hilary concentration. tba Gartnan*
mail* a sarond attempt lu pierce ilia
Urtliah defeii s in iha Gtmneileu Me-
lor The ltrli|*h. strongly mirrm hrd.
war* holding iha lina firmly at all
point* at la*( report*
♦ ♦ ♦
A recent official dispatch from
Roma *uvs Austro-German attacks on
the Italian front have ceased entirely
Aaothar offensive by tba enemy on a
■till larger arala la bellevad to ba Im-
minent. however. and tba Itallana ara
preparing to meat It
♦ ♦ ♦
Racantly tba Germane delivered no
fewer tban fifteen attacks aguln t Brit
Tba tblrteaa ronvlrte oho escape* j
from tba atata penitential > at Joliet. J
III. lata at aigbl stoppad a < 111 rag O,
Ottawa A 1'aorta latarurban ear.
Imh| iba i>a*tangri( and craw and druva
.be ear to Morris. ill. abara tb®y
abandonad 11.
♦ ♦ ♦
Tba atata of Wisconsin Iba com-
ing >a«r will not !>• abla to meat lla
obligations, ar cording to a latter
ll«nr> Jobnaon. treasurer. aent to
Governor >"billi|*t tba otbar day Mr
Jubnaon aaya tba atata traaaury baa
91>26,000 laaa tban a year ago.
♦ ♦ ♦
Tba largaat balloon at tba Port
Omaha balloon acbool escaped recsnt
ly In a high wind and hoaded south
ward with a eable all thousand feat
long dangling downward. Whan laat
aean the balloon waa ten thouaand
teat In the air and haaded down tba
Missouri River valley.
+ + ♦
More than twelve thouaand new
cases of tuberculoala have been die-
covered In Chicago within a congest-
««l area of eight square mile* aince the
beginning of the experimental survey
HALIFAX WRECKED BY EXPLOSION
LIST OF DEAD WILL REACH 2
DISASTER FOLLOWS COLLI-
SION OF BELGIAN RELIEF
SHIP IONA AND FRENCH
MUNITIONS VESSEL
lab poeltlona In I«a Vacquarle Those j |,v municipal aanltarlum in Sop-
In a position to know say that mora tetabar, 1916.
Germans opposite I .a Vacquerle were
killed In twelve houra than In any
other apot in the aame time In the
whole course of the war.
+ + +
The Ilrltiah troopa withdrew from
the village of Masnieres, according to
the official report from British head-
quarters in France "without molesta-
t ion from the enemy." Prior to thia,
heavy assaults by Germans against
this front were repulsed.
+ * +
The Oerfnens In a violent offensive
over the entire front where the Brit-
lab made their notable gains last week
have pushed back General Byng's
troops at several points, according
to dispatches reaching Washington.
Later the Teutons were driven back
by counter attacks.
+ + +
All along the front in Palestine
from northwest of Jerusalem to the
Mediterranean coast the Turks are
making demonstrations, but have not
affected the British positions, it is an-
nounced officially.
+ + +
The battling of the infantry for the
possession of Fontaine, Notre Dame
and between Moeuvres and Bourlon
has ceased temporarily, but at times
the artillery fire la of great intensity
in these regions. Near Poelcapelle
and between Becelaere and Gheluvelt,
and in the Arras sector the big guns
of both groups of belligerents are
maintaining a heavy bombardment.
* + +
A substantial vanguard of the great
army of American aviators, which
eventually will operate in France, has
arrived near the front. For weeks
some of them had been training ac-
tively for battle front service.
+ + +
Washington.
The shell case, which held the first
shot fired by American artillerymen
on the western front has been given
to President Wilson by the party of
congressmen who recently made an
unofficial visit to the battle fields.
They also conveyed greetings from
King Albert and President Poincare.
* + +
The American government is shap-
ing what it described as a tolerant
policy in dealing with Russia in her
present straits, so as to show hope
and faith for the ultimate triumph of
a sane democracy. Contracts for sup-
plies of material for Russia, it was
said, would go forward as usual.
4- + -fr
Requests from different governmen-
tal quarters for priority of transporta-
tion of food, fuel and munitions has
thrown tie whole question of prefer-
ential shipment into a tangle. The com-
mittee on priority of transportation, of
which Robert S. Lovett is chairman,
4s trying to clear the situation.
+ + +
The second session of the Sixty-fifth
congress began with brief routine ses-
sions marked by the receipt of ap-
propriation estimates for next year's
war and ordinary expenses aggregat-
ing the vast sum of $13,500,000,000.
+ + +
The government's first move toward
curtailing non-essential industries dur-
ing the war was made when the fuel
administration sent to coal producers
a preferred list of consumers to serve
as a guide in filling orders. The list
established preferential shipment for
government orders, railway fuel,
household requirements, public util-
TWO SQUIRE MILES OF CITY
IS A COMPLETE WRECK
Hundreds of Children Crushed to
Death In the School Housee—Worst
Oleaster Recorded In the Western
Hemisphere— Red Croea Rushes Re-
lief Trains.
Halifax—With the toll or dead
+ ^ steadily mounting, it Is believed that
Kim Lieutenant W.llK. F. Itolfw. MM per-on. perl.hed
the explosion and fire which followed
a collision in Halifax harbor between
a munition-laden French ship and an-
other vessel loaded with supplies for
the Belgian relief commission.
The disaster, which has plunged the
dominion into mourning, probably will
rank ss the most fearful that ever oc-
curred on the American continent.
Residents of Halifax and thousands of
volunteer relief workers who have
come into the city have been almost
dazed at the extent of the horror.
Temporary morgues have been es-
tablished in many buildings, to which
modlral officer of the reserve corps
attached to the British forces, has
been seriously wounded in action, the
war department has been advised by
General Pershing.
+ + +
Twenty-three persons are reported
to have been injured when a troop
train on the Illinois Central en route
from Chicago to Camp Grant at Rock-
ford, 111., was derailed at Cloverdale.
+ + +
According to Leonard D. Abbott,
who was an official in the so-called
conscription league and who is active
in the Radical group of which Emma
Rustneas had Just begun for the
day. Persona la tba straats warn
hurled lo the ground. Occupants of
ofBca buildings cowered under a show-
er of falling glass and plaster. Houses
In the Richmond section collapsed,
burying their tenants.
In the main part of the city, where
the buildings are chiefly of stone or
concrete, the damsge was confined to
shattering of windows and most cas-
ualtlee there were caused by flying
glass.
Houses Blown to Bita
In the west and northwest ends the
damage was more extensive. There
walls of many bouses were blown to
bits. It was in Richmond, however.
HOFFMAN OROEREO TO FRORCE
WILL COMMAND TWO BRI-
GADES OF NEGROES
Oklahoma Brigadier General Maa A4
vanced to Rank of a Major
General.
Washington — Brigadier General
Roy lloffmsn will rommaad a provi-
sional divisloa of approximately 14,400
negro troops, which are soon to see
active service In franco, it waa aa
nounced at the. war department, and
ha has left for an Atlantic port Or-
ders for the concentration of the dif-
ferent units, which ara to compose
the provisional division, have beea
Issued.
The division will be composed or
two brigades, which have been desig-
nated as the ISftth and 186th. The
186th brigade will be made up or
troops from the fifteenth New York
. iii Infantry and the eighteenth Illinois In-
opposite the scene of the explosion. fantry T|w ,gflth br|gud# w||| b.
that the havoc was greatest. Wholo made up of troopa from the ninetieth
blocks or dwellings, mostly or rrame aeparmt< battalion of Ohio, first sepa-
construction, were leveled. Many stood ; rat0 battalion of the District of Colum-
Goldman is the head, a meeting over j a steady procession of vehicles of all
which he presided recently was the
Initial gathering of the Bolsheviki of
New York.
+ + +
Southwest.
Frank R. Crocker of Minneapolis,
who inherited a large estate from his
father, a Boston banker, committed
suicide in a hotel at St. Louis recent-
ly. Mrs. Crocker said her husband
had been a victim of melancholia for
some time.
+ + +
Six negroes v^ere shot and killed In
a crap game tfie other night at Ross,
Ark., a small lumber camp in the
southwestern part .of this county, ac-
cording to reports received at Blythe-
ville. The negro who did the shoot-
ing made his escape.
+ + !•
In a battle at Buena Vista, Tex., be-
tween United States cavalrymen un-
der command of Lieutenant Leonard
F. Matlock and Mexican cattle thieves,
one soldier was killed and another
slightly wounded. Justo Gonzales,
foreman of an American ranch, who
was acting as scout for the soldiers,
was killed.
+ * +
More than 200 miners employed in
Hartshorne mine No. 7, in Oklahoma,
have voted not to go back to work in
the mines until the increase in wages,
which they expected when the agree-
ment containing the penalty clause
was signed in Kansas City is paid
them.
+ + +
A verdict has been reached in the
court-martial of the sixty-three ne-
groes of the Twenty-fourth Infantry,
charged with murder, mutiny and riot-
ing as a result of the uprising at Hous-
ton, Tex., August 23. The verdict will
be reviewed before being made public.
+ +
In the last few days an armistice
has been announced on many sectors
of the Russian front, from division to
division and from corps to corps. In
the Pripet region the Russian army
concluded an official armistice with
the opposing command of the allied
(teutonic) troops.
+ + +
Foreign.
According to figures given out by
the war office the British captured on
all fronts in the month of November
26,869 prisoners and 221 guns. Among
the "aptures were 11,551 men and 138
gunc taken on the western front; 10,-
kinds have been carrying for hours the
bodies of men, women and children.
Most of them were so charred that
they were unrecognizable.
Thousands of persons seeking trace
of relatives and friends have passed by
the long rows, attempting in the flick-
ering light of lamps and lanterns to
Identify the ones they sought.
No Hope of Recovery.
Virtually every building in the city
which could be converted into a hos-
pital is filled with wounded, many of
them bo desperately injured that there
is no hope of their recovery. Scores
already have died in these temporary
hospitals.
The city is in darkness, except for
the flames from the fires still burning
in the wrecked buildings in the north
end. The electric light and gas plants
have been virtually destroyed. All
newspaper plants were wrecked.
Soldiers, sailors and police patrol
the streets and upon them fell the
major portion of the burden of search-
ing among the ruins for the dead and
wounded. The Canadians were assist-
ed in this work by sailors from an
American warship in the harbor.
The collision occurred near Pier 8
in the narrows leading from the har-
bor to Bedford Basin. The munitions
ship, the Mont Blanc, was bound from
New York for Bedford Basin when the
relief ship Iona bound for sea, crash-
ed into her.
Both Crews Escape.
The Mont Blanc was pierced on the
port side almost to the engine room.
The other ship, which was only slight-
ly damaged, backed away when flames
burst from the munitions ship and was
abandoned by the crew. The captain
of the Mont Blanc also ordered his
crew to the boats, as he realized an
explosion was inevitable. The men
reached shore safely, before the tre-
mendous blast seventeen minutes lat-
er blew their ship to pieces.
Five minutes after the explosion the
streets in all parts of Halifax were
filled with frenzied throngs striving
in ruins and the structures left stand-
ing were destroyed by flres which
broke out simultaneously in a score
~of places and which It was Impossible
to check. It Is believed scores of per-
sons Injured by the collapse of their
homes perished in the flames, from
which they were helpless to flee. The
flres in this district still are smould-
ering.
Three Children Escape.
The flame-swept area covers ap-
bia and separate companies from Mas-
sachusetts. Connecticut. Maryland,
Tennessee.
Brigadier Oeneral O. H. Blanding of
Florida will command the 186th bri-
gade, and Brigadier General Georgo
Harries of Nebraska will command
the 186th. Brigadier General Hoff-
man will be in full command or tho
division, which the two brigades will
compose.
Major Ancel Earp, adjutant general
or the Oklahoma Nat!onal Guard, who
proximately two and one-hair ssuare was commissioned a short time ago ao
miles. It begins at what is known as
the North street bridge, extending
north to Pier 8, on the Richmond wa-
ter rront, and Dacx to a point run-
ning parallel with Gottingen street.
Nothing has been lett standing in th a
section or the city. Only a pile of
smouldering ruins marks the spot
where the great building of the Amer-
major in the adjutant general's de-
partment, was assigned as adjutant
for the division.
General Hoffman's new assignment
was characterized by one war depart-
ment official as "very Important" as it
places him rarther in the line for
promotion to the rank or major gen-
eral. This probably will be the first
ican Sugar Refining Company stood. ; negro division to see service in
The dry dock and all the buildings
which surrounded it were destroyed.
The Richmond school that housed
hundreds of children was demolish-
ed and it is reported only three es-
caped.
Canadian officers who have seen
long service in France characterize
tfie catastrophe as the "most fearful ■
which has befallen any city in the
world."
North End Laid Waste.
Virtually all the north end of the
France. It was said at the war de-
partment that great care had been ex-
ercised in the selection of men for of-
ficers to command the division.
URGES RAILWAY CONTROL
interstate Commerce Commission
Thinks That the Only Solution.
Washington. — Immediate action
to effect national unification of tho
railroads, either by government opera-
city was laid waste and the property jjon or by suspension tor the war of
damage will run far into the millions, j anti-trust and anti-pooling laws, a fed-
A part of the town of Dartmouth,
across the harbor from Halifax, also
was wrecked. Nearly all the buildings
in the dock yards there are ruins.
The zone of destruction in Halifax
itself, covers an area of about two
square miles. The buildings which
were not demolished by the force of
the explosion were destroyed by the
fire which followed.
Scores of persons were injured by
the collapse of the railway "station,
arena rink, military gymnasium, sugar
refinery and elevators.
Temporary morgues have been
opened in school houses in the west-
ern section of the city.
Many of the men composing the
crews of the ships in the harbor were
among the killed and injured. On one
ship, the Pictou, it is reported, 33 of
43 were killed. Bodies of many sea-
men have been picked up in the har-
bor.
Buildings Thrown Open.
The work of rescue and relief was
promptly organized. The academy or
music and many other public build-
ings were thrown open to the home-
less. Five hundred tents have been
erected on the common and these will
be occupied by the troops who have
surrendered their barracks to th®
women and children.
Space in all available buildings was
made ready within an hour to receive
the wounded. A steady stream of
ambulances and automobiles arrived
eral loan and regulation or security is-
sues to permit more ellective volun-
tary co-operations, was recommended
by the interstate commerce commis-
sion in a special report to congress.
Neither plan was specifically in-
dorsed but an implication that the ma-
jority believed the railroads might
successfully work out their own unifi-
cation prompted Commissioner Mc-
Chord to submit a separate report em-
phatically urging government control
and saying "the strong arm of the gov-
ernment authority is essential if the
transportation situation is to be rad-
ically improved,"
THE WAR
to reach the outskirts In an effort to
escape what they believed was a raid'at hospitals which soon were filled to
by a German fleet. Hundreds had , capacity with the injured. Doctors,
been cut by the shower of glass which j nurses and volunteers toiled ceaseless-
followed the explosion. ly in the work of succor. Their ranks
... In the Richmond section, seriously j were soon swelled by others, who ar-
4M men" Ind" eighty "gains' in Vaiestine j injured men and women crawled from rived in increasing numbers rrom the
and 4,.03 men and three guns in East j the wreckage or their homes and lay | nearby towns.
Africa.
+ + *
in the streets until removed to hospi-1 \ committee of citizens already has
tals. Those less seriously hurt aided been formed and assistance is asked
w . „ .. . . . ithose more gravely injured. In the from all outside points for bedding and
Major Kerth, American military at- Ftreet3 plled hi>?h wlth debris, were blankets. The mayors of all towns
tache. has been instructed by Ambas- ?ound the shattered bodies of many : ln the province have been asked to
sador David R. Francis to make a pro- women and chiIdren. Several children n,gh supplies.
I te8t on the part °f th® Vn,U^ were crushed to death when they were ! Th f of the exniosion was Mt
Ities. steel plants, coke ovens and mu similar to that entered by the heads hllrIed a(tajnf,t telephone poles by the . Truro 75 awav where win-
nition plants. j of the entente embassies in Petrograd force of the explogkm. at TruTO' 75 m,le8 a™y' W,n
♦ ♦ +
Domestic.
Eighteen miners are believed to
have been imprisoned in the new
North mine of tba Old Ben Coal Cor-
poration at Christopher, HI., following
an explosion in tba mine. The explo-
aion wracked the main shaft at tha
mine and also the air shaft. The men
In the mine weia exugbt c-o tha
foot Iota!
to the negotiations for an armistice
between Russia and Germany.
♦ + ♦
National guardsmen from every
state in the I'nion have arrived in
France. It is now permitted to ba an-
nounced. They are among tha troops
now training or lately arrived. While
< it is not permitted to disclose the
identity of units, it may be said that
all tboae which sailed from the United
, States have arrived safely.
dows were shattered. All telegraph
In scores of cases occupants or and telephone wires were torn down
houses who hsd escaped without Injury and for several hours Halirax was
or only slight hurts, were prevented completely Isolated from the outaido
by the flames from searching tor mem- j world.
bers or their ramilles who were unable pilot Frank Mackie, or the Mont
to escape rrom tne burning structureo. j Blanc declared that the collision re-
in less than hair an hour atter the j suited rrom a confus'on or whistlaa
disaster. 5.000 persons had assembled sounded by the Iona. Ho believes the
on the common and thoo«snds of oth-! Are which caused the exploa'on was
ers had sought refuge in fields outside j doe to the fact that the munitions ship
•he city. j carried a deck load of benzine
Carefully laid plans of General Byng
to withdraw his troops at various
points on the Cambrai salient to more
enable positions have been carried
out in perfect order and apparently
without the Germans even having
knowledge of the movement.
The falling back was made neces-
sary by wedges driven into the salient
last week by the Germans, which on
several sectors threatened disaster to
the British should they continue to
hold their positions. From an area ex-
tending before the Cambrai a distance
of about eighteen miles the new Brit-
ish front has been lessened to a length
of about ten miles wltn the bases rest-
ing in the north in the region of
Moeuvres and in the south near Gon-
nelieu.
As a result of the backward move-
ment the Germans claim the reoccupa-
tion or the Graincourt, Anneux, Noy-
elles and the woods and heights north
of Marcolng and that their uncontest-
ed advance has a depth or about two
end a half miles over a rront ot six
and a quarter miles. The Berlin war
office asserts that since the German
offensive in the Cambrai region be-
gan British prisoners in excess ot 9,000
and 148 guns have been taken.
On the Italian rront the A istro<Jer-
mans are making rrant c attempts to
break through the Italian positions
and debouch upon the plain or Yen-
etla.
In the Astago plateau region battles
or almost unprecedented violanae are
taking place, tha Teutonic allien using
a great array or guns and coantleae
tho.iaands or men l'i their efforts to
overcome tha Italian reslataoe*.
% #
V}
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The Willow Times (Willow, Okla.), Vol. 2, No. 27, Ed. 1 Friday, December 14, 1917, newspaper, December 14, 1917; Willow, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc276773/m1/2/: accessed April 24, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.