The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1916-01-20
five AMERICANS
killed in FRANCE
Kelly Of the Foreign Legion.
Sought Honors on Battlefield.
LAST Seen IN FOES TRENCH

Dispatch From French War Office Says
He Is Honorably Missing-compan-
ions Also Praised For Their Bravery
on Many Occasions Since They En-.
listed With the Allies.
Kelly of the Foreign legion is dead.
Russell Kelly, 45 Broadway, New
York, U. S. A." is the way his name
went into the rolls of his regiment In
France, but Kelly Of the Foreign le-
gion" is the way it will be written in
the rell of heroes when the list is
handed down to posterity in the story
Of the European war.
Kelly grinned and said he would
cheat the Germans when he was told
that the order had gone out to execute
every member Of the Foreign legion
captured in battle. And he did cheat
them. He escaped the ignominious
death threatened at the hands of a
firing squad to find more glorious one
On the field Of battle. "
Where Kelly Of the Foreign legion
met death and how only those who
were with him on his final charge can
tell. But his father, James e. Kelly,
possesses a treasured message from
the French war Office that he points to
as sufficient evidence that his boy died
as an American should.
your son is honorably missing. Was
seen in German trench with bullet in
shoulder" the message reads.
The meager dispatch contains addi-
tional facts that will give little salts
faction to the Americans whose eyes
have scanned the cables for news of
other Americans in the legion. 1t tells
of the death Of Kelly's four American
associates, Hermon Edwin Hall. of
Chicago, John Earle Pike Of Wooster,
O., and Kenneth Weeks and Henry
FarnsWorth of Boston. -..
Reported Dead Once Before.
The names first appeared among the
casualties at Givenchy, but later it was
reported that Kelly and possibly the
other four had recovered and again
had taken their places in the trenches.
The later report, however, may mean
that this was an error OR that they fell
together in a later encounter.
Kelly, who had been in the lines of
the allies somewhere in France" for
several months, was reported missing
last summer. James Kelly, on learn
ing Of the disappearance Of his adven-
turous- son, started the machinery of
-the- state department at washington
on search for him in German prisons.
Simultaneous with the original report
came the statement that Germany had
ordered all members Of the Foreign
legion shot wherever they might be
captured. The technical offense Of the
members Of the legion was that they
were not citizens of the country for
which they were fighting.
"But Russell will beat that all right"
confidently asserted the father. when
I first learned Of the difficulties that
the legionaires were likely to get into
I wrote him explicit directions not to
claim American citizenship il taken
prisoner. All told him to do was to
claim the right of communicating with
Ambassador Gerard. His answer to
my letter was characteristic 1t was,
will follow your Instructions in case
of capture"
However, news reached Mr.. Russell
that there was no record of the i'm
prisonment of his son in a German
camp. The news was crushing 1t
had seemed possible that he might
have concealed his identity for weeks
but seven months-the fathers almost
unlimited fund of hope was lost.
Kelly wrote to his father that he was
seeing hotter work than Ty Cobb ever
had seen in hitting the grit. The
twenty-two-year-old boy cheerfully an
4 nOunced that he was out for glory.
And now Kelly Of the Foreign legion
has reached the other end of the path
that leads to glory.
Kenneth Weeks of Cambridge, Mass,
whose death in France is reported, was
tWenty-six years old and had written
i've volumes Of short stories, besides
several plays. He went to Paris five
years ago to study at the Beaux Arts.
Devoted to France. he enlisted at the
outbreak Of the war and spent the
first winter In the trenches. He was
chosen as bomb thrower for his SQUAD
and took in the offensive of May 4.
He was mentioned in dispatches for
bravery. He was regarded as writer
of much promise.
Henry w. Farnsworth, Harvard
graduate and a member of an old Bos-
ton family, was twenty-five years old
and had been out of college but few
years. When the war started he had
just begun work in the Office of his
father. Before relatives could object
he had packed his trunk and was on
tie way to Europe.
Farnsworth wanted to be right in the
midst of the fighting and refused to
become a war correspondent, prefer.
ring to join the Foreign legion. His
company. according to letters he wrote
home, was in many desperate engage
ments in northern France
Jail Vacant For Thirty Years
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