NPC shrdlu - Chapter IV

IN 1917 CAME the entry of the United States into the European War as it then was called. But, since that August of 1914, when the fighting had begun, tremendous changes had been taking place at the National Capital and inevitably, had an effect upon the Club, its membership, and what occurred within its portals. The times were extraordinary because the change from the long period of previous peace was far greater, in a sense, than when Pearl Harbor befell. By that time, war, was a twice-told tale.

While Washington was not a German city to the same extent as Americans think of Cincinnati, St. Louis and Milwaukee as being strongly influenced by German culture, yet there was a numerous population here of Germans and people of German descent and they were among the substantial citizens of the National Capital. Washington had its Saengerbund and its Turnverein where Washington reporters covered all sorts of events and knew intimately large numbers of Germans. There was the Fritz Reuter Hotel down the Avenue not far from the Capitol with its restaurant where a stranger might well think himself in Nuremburg, so German was the decoration, the furniture, the cuisine and the wine list and where about as much German as English was heard at the tables. There was Fred Geyer's Beer-garden where, in summer, one listened to as acceptable a stringed orchestra all through the summer's evening as could be heard in Munich or Berlin and where pewter-topped steins off beer cost a nickel!

Among the Associate members was Ed Droop who, with his brother Carl, operated a music store which had been founded by their immigrant father. Droops was to Washington, one might say, what Steinway's was to New York. It was the music center of the city. The list of Charter Members included the learned Dr. A. D. Jacobson who for many years served as telegraph editor of the Post and who would discuss deep German politics and philosophy, art and letters by the hour and who, on the side, was building up a syndicated column under the pen-name of Flaneur, dealing with the affairs, past and present, of Continental aristocracy. Dr. Jacobson knew the Almanach de Gotha practically by heart.

There were German correspondents and members of the staffs of Austrian and German diplomatic missions and it must not be forgotten that the German name of Pulitzer was an even more potent newspaper name then than it is now, what with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World holding such dominant positions. The larger cities had German language newspapers of wide influence. Moreover, in those first years very few Americans expected that the United States ever would go to war with Germany. William Randolph Hearst had no such expectation and his papers reflected his view.

Why, when the German merchant submarine Deutschland put in at Baltimore, Ed and Carl Droop, together with Gus Bucholz who not long before had opened the Occidental Hotel and Restaurant, next door to the Willard Hotel, formed a welcoming committee and brought officers and crew of the submarine to Washington in relays where they were taken sightseeing, given banquets and every mark of enthusiastic respect. Yes, the advent of the First World War brought far more strangeness and shock to Washington than did the second global conflict.

The entry into the war brought thousands of strange new people. There were special writers of all kinds who either became members of the Club or held guest cards. And then came the foreign missions, the Allied Nations' representatives including every category of activity.

This was a period when picturesqueness descended upon the Club in all its color and romance. Each of the Allies sent missions to Washington. There were, primarily, the diplomatic missions but then came military missions, purchasing missions, shipping missions, financial missions and missions devoted to munitions, to food, to communications - all the intricate paraphernalia of modern warfare. Then, too, Americans were putting on uniforms and day by day members were appearing in unaccustomed garb to add to the uniforms of the foreigners.

On an afternoon or evening in the Press Club one could see half the uniforms of the Western World save, of course the German and Austrian Here would be a spruce British major in a uniform of some Guards regiment, there an airman and, heightening the color still more, a Canadian or Scot in kilt and plaid, sporan and tam o'shanter or Scots bonnet. Spurs jingled an obbligato to the tinkling of ice in glasses and every kind or accent could be heard. Enriching the scene were the beautiful uniforms of the French Alpine Chasseurs and Italian Bersaglieri with their wonderful plumed hats. There were naval uniforms, too, to add to the horse, foot and guns. And, of course, in the Club, all ranks were leveled. The British major general had his glass with elbow touching the reporter who that afternoon had covered a murder.

As the war progressed, changes took place, some exciting, some with a tragic tinge. Dr. Jacobson has been mentioned. Although he had come to this country as a youth, just after the Franco-Prussian War in which, as a subaltern, he had won an Iron Cross in Bismarck's conquering armies, he had neglected to take out citizenship papers. He had married and raised a family and had bought a pleasant house in Georgetown. He owned other property here - in all respects a solid citizen save for the one fundamental.

So the learned Dr. Jacobson disappeared from his desk at the Post, disappeared from the Club, disappeared into an interment camp, his property seized by the Alien Property Custodian and himself so heartbroken that he did not survive the struggle. Washington, being Federal territory, he could not be tolerated here so he and many other Germans were moved into Maryland. There was no one to keep alive the syndicated feature he had so painstakingly built tip and of course, he could not retain his position on the Post.

Many a member had to stand a salvo of jokes when just he appeared in uniform - as a private or, more gaily, as an officer. Early in the emergency, a group of members joined a volunteer cavalry troop which was organized across the River at Fort Meyer.

After drill they would limp back to the Press Club, saddle sore and otherwise weary. Among them were Stephen Early of the Associated Press, who in later years as Press Secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave fresh importance to that post, and George R. Holmes, subsequently Chief of the Washington Bureau of the International News Service.

Newspapermen by the hundreds went into the armed services from Washington before the struggle was over. By the scores they went off to camps, some to get no farther, but many to go overseas. Some fell in battle; most returned. There were others who were given tasks at Washington in various capacities. There were not, however, many press relations officers in that war; that was a development to flower in the Second World War. There also were important civilian posts correspondents were called upon to fill. Kirke Simpson of the Associated Press was adviser to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Nor can the Committee on Public Information be forgotten for an instant.

This was an extraordinary establishment. George Creel, an ardent newspaper crusader of the school of Lincoln Steffens, Gilson Gardner and their colleagues, had been called in by President Wilson to set up a news clearing house at Washington to handle all the news of the war. The Committee took one of the old brick mansions on Jackson Place, still standing but doomed to give way with most of the other structures on the block to an iconoclastic sense of progress. The old house was turned into a series of press rooms and there each day were distributed the announcements of every government department. It was the centralized "Handout Citadel."

Members of the Club, as a matter of course, were drawn upon to man the Committee's news gathering and disseminating staff. E. S. Rochester, one of the Charter Members, was an assistant to Mr. Creel. The Club became a headquarters for gossip about what the Committee was doing, what mistakes it was making, how it could be done better - the inevitable gleeful complaints of all newspapermen everywhere. This was especially so because George Creel's office was something utterly new in the history of news coverage in Washington. The idea of having to go to a central source was anathema to veteran reporters and, as a matter of course, every effort was made to get news from under George Creel's nose. There came a time, only a few weeks later, when the Creel office of necessity became a chief source because it was only there one obtained those steadily lengthening casualty lists.

As the war progressed, members of the Club would come back from overseas, some with wound stripes, all with tales to tell and the Club often bore more the semblance of a military club, so many and so varied were the uniforms. Needless to relate all the strategy of the war was reworked by the "90-day Wonders" around the restaurant tables and the bar.

Across 15th Street, the Treasury was vitally concerned with floating the Liberty Loans. Not a little of the strategy of financing was plotted in the Club. Labert St. Clair and Frank R. Wilson were the newspapermen who were especially concerned with carrying on that task after some initial work by Robert W. Woolley.

These worked as civilians lacking, perhaps, the glamor of uniforms but Sevellon R. Brown was in a captain's uniform so was William Atherton Du Puy, H. R. Baukhage and many another. Captain Cushman Rice was one of the first aviators to go from the Club, first to fly with the British and then with the American forces. He was the personification of the Richard Harding Davis soldier of fortune, who, before this war, had seen enough revolutionary service in Latin American armies to fill many a Club evening with fascinating tales.

One of the most picturesque figures in the Club during those war years was Colonel Gordon Gordon-Smith. He was in Washington as Military Attache to the Rumanian Legation. Previously he had served in the British Army and his slender, trim, military figure was right out of Kipling. He was a quiet reserved man and not until the Armistice did members know that he had three sons fighting in the British Army. When the Armistice came Col. Gordon Gordon-Smith reserved the Flemish Room to give a dinner party to a few of his special friends in the Club - eight or ten perhaps. It was to celebrate because the end of fighting had come with one of his sons still living. He had told no one that two already had fallen. But now the war was over. It was a merry evening, about ten days after the Armistice. The next day he received notice that his third son had fallen on the very last days November 11th ! He came no more to the Club.

Never before had members of the Club played so important a part in the affairs of the Federal Government. It is true that correspondents had, since the first days of the Republic, been confidants and advisers of men high in office but now, in the emergency of war, many were called upon to assist the Government as an entirety. The Government establishment grew beyond any known precedent. Such curious and theretofore unknown instrumentalities as the War Industries Board, the War Labor Board, the Food Administration, the Fuel Administration and that most fantastic of all in many ways, the United States Shipping Board, came into being.

Men from business and industrial life such as Bernard Baruch, Herbert Hoover, Eugene Meyer, and many others appeared in Washington and, inevitably, at the Club. It early was recognized that the assistance of the press was of the first importance. Many newspapermen took appointments in the Government establishment and the Club itself was hourly buzzing with conferences on plans and policies.

It was the first war in which the industrial, the productive power of a nation rather than the prowess of its men under arms would prove the decisive factor in achieving victory. There very early arose the problem of liaison between the regulatory bodies at Washington and the vast complex of factories, mines, mills, transportation, agriculture, forestry - every productive agency and source. Statements issued from governmental sources containing technical words and phrases unknown to most Washington correspondents. The mere task of getting information regarding new regulations of the utmost importance to industry was tremendous. The time lag in spreading news of a new regulation might prove serious.

It was here that the newspapermen came to the rescue. In addition to the correspondents of the metropolitan press, there were many correspondents of the business press. In fact, not a few regular daily paper reporters had side jobs for trade and business papers. Once a month the business writers gave a dinner for government officials. There the problems of getting technical news quickly disseminated was discussed and arrangements made whereby the American business press, in effect, became the channel of quick communication.

The arrangement worked both ways: the Washington offices learned the recommendations of industry and basic facts on what was practicable and what was not. And, obviously, the business press was indispensable in compiling and publishing statistics concerning the essential industries. Discussion at the Club over these matters often crystalloid recommendations, the correction of practices, the conduct of this part of the prosecution of the war. The list of names of those who contributed to this work would be long, but Paul Wooton, Club president in l 946, requires special mention as he was chiefly instrumental in bringing together the many elements. In 1917 he organized the Conference of Business Paper Editors which still functions. The same sort of work was done in World War II and, in 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt presented Mr. Wooton with a gold watch and a scroll in recognition of his contribution.

When President Wilson set up the Committee on Public Information he turned over to that instrumentality the task of war censorship of news. George Creel, the Chairman, asked the Secretaries of State, of War and of the Navy to make suggestions as to what matters should be deemed secret. From their staffs, the high brass of the period, they presented Mr. Creel with more than one hundred forbidden topics. From his long newspaper experience, Mr. Creel knew this would be unworkable. After long conferences with the officers he was able to cut the list down to eighteen.

"The next step," says Mr. Creel, in writing of that experience, "was their submission to the National Press Club and after sufficient time for proper study I called a meeting of the newspapermen and presented myself for questioning." He goes on to describe the measures taken to insure the protection of military secrets and yet protect the rights of a free press . "This was done,", Mr. Creel, "by placing men in every department of the Government for the preparation and release of reports on America's war effort. Not the hundreds of "public relations counselors" of World War II, but a few trained reporters recommended by the elders or the National Press Club."

Thus that little group of earnest reporters who had set up a modest press club had grown into what might well be regarded as the most important instrumentality (save men actually in combat) in the conduct of the war, for upon the flow of news to the American public depended the entire national morale! Those club founders had become justified by their works!

Gus J. Karger became President of the Club for 1918. Mr. Karger for many years had been Washington correspondent for the Cincinnati Times Star. An important figure in his own right, his stature had been increased in 1909, when Mr. Taft became President. He had known him in Cincinnati and thence had a special entree at the White House. With Nicholas Longworth and other Ohio stalwarts he was boon companion and could be depended upon to rally those statesmen to the Club entertainments at almost any time.

	1919
In 1919 it was fifty cents for lunch, and war patriotism still decreed that sauerkraut must be called "liberty cabbage." By 1958, a member could get a good corned beef sandwich for seventy-five cents, but the daily special luncheon would cost him $1.35. (In World War II, sauerkraut was still sauerkraut!)
1958

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CHAPTER IV

WORLD WAR