The Pioche record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1908-1925, 1919-05-23
BY FREDERIC J. hASkiN.
In the Chicago Daily News.

Nashville. Tenn He began his mil |
itary career as religious conscien- |
tiOus objector. HI, was convinced oe
the need for killing Germans by argu
meflts drawn from the Bible. And he
acted on this conviction by killing "a
Germans In a machine gun nest. with
his rifle. and capturing. with five as
sistants. 132 of the enemy. including
four officers.
This achievement OF Corporal York.
which has been called ay General Per-
shing the greatest sifgle exploit of
the war. has become famous. but the
man himself remains VI known. And
surely such man deserves to be ex-
planned. You want to knnw what sort
Of a chap he is, and what environment
fostered such combination OF moral
courage and physical skAl.
The answer to these Questions is
found here in the section that pro-
duced Corporal York. 1t nifty be stated
in sentence by saying thst York be-
longs to the vanishing rsce of old
Americans. Men who werN just like
him In their faith In God, their courage
and their straight shooting won the
Revolution and several subsequent
wars.
OF Pure American Breed.
Such men have become s.arce In
America now. New breeds hive come
In and the old breec has been changed
by changing conditions. But there is
| one section of America In which the
| old American race still breeds true to
| type, and more than that stu lives
almost MS It lived when the Boones-
soro men threw down their axis, took
their rifles and went out to extermi-
nate General Ferguson's command at
Kings mountain.
The section referred to Is the south
ern Allegheny mountain region. The
place where Corporal York was born
and lived all his life until he was called
to war, Is a typical bit Of 1t. His
home post Office Is Pail Mall, Fentress
county, Tennessee. about 100 miles
east Of this city. There Is nothing at
Pail Mall except the post Office. and
the three forks Of the Wolf river
which come together there. On all
sides are the wooded ridges Of the Al
legheny mountains. Until two years
ago 1t was IS miles to the nearest rail
road. Many men who went to wal
from this section saw railroad train
for the first time when they answered
the call to arms. To all intents and
purposes they stepped out of the eight
eenth century and into the twentieth
That is what Corporal York did.
Region Where Clemens Was Born.
All the people in this region are OF
Scotch, English, Welsh and Irish stock
Their ancestors came down through
the mountains from Virginia and Norti
Carolina in colonial days, and tn,
lands have been held by the same fam
lilies ever since. One of these families
Is the Clemens family, which produced
town, the county seat'o Fentress coun
ty. His father owned large areas o
land near there. which he sold an,
traded about in such way as to i'm
mOrtalize his name, for they are still
trying to straighten out the titles t
the Clemens lands, and the old man
dealings promise to furnish occupation
for many more generations Of law
yers.
York is the third from the top.
as they say down here, in family @
nine children, and is twenty-seve
years old. His father having diet
and his two older brothers married, h
became the head of the family an
took care Of his mother and the fan
lily homestead. He once described hin
self as being "a kind of mommer
boy"
He is not, however, given to descri
ing himself at length. In this countr
, where people never talk much unles
they are running for Office, the Yorl
had reputation for silence. His Fl
Their is said often to have gone throup
whole day in the company of frier