The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-04-30
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM A TON
Blu RE AU
FREDERIC ]. HASKIN. Director,
Washington. D. c
W--R AND A MOUNTAIN MAN
The story of CORPORAL York.
Washington. D. C

Inc Story Ol
Nashville, Tenn, April 26.-He be-
gan HI military career as a religious
conscientious objector He was con-
WINGED of the need for killing Ger
mans by arguments drawn from the
Bible And he a, ed on this convic-
ton by killing twenty-four Germans
in machine gun nest with his rifle
and capturing, with five assistants,
one hundred and thirty-two of tie en-
envy, including four officers.
! This achievement of Corporal York S,
which has been called by General Per-
shing the greatest single exploit OF the
war, has become famous; but tie man
himself remains unknown. And surely
such man deserves to be explained
You want to know what sort of a chap
he is, and what environment fostered
such a combination of moral courage
and physical skill.
The answer to these questions Is
found here in the section that pro-
duced Corporal York. 1t may be stated
in a sentence by saying that York be-
longs to the vanishing race of Old
Americans. Men who were just like
him in their faith in God, their cour-
age and their straight shooting won
the Revolution and several subsequent
wars.
Such men have become scarce in
America now. New breeds have come
in, and the old breed has been changed
by changing conditions. But there is
Old American race still breeds true to
type, and more than that, still lives
almost as it lived when the Boones-
boro men threw down their axes, took
their rifles and went out to eXtermi-
nate General Fergusons 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 it. His
home postoffice is Pail Mall, Fentress
county, Tennessee. about 100 miles
east of here. There is nothing at Pail
! Mall except the postoffice. and the
three forks OF the Wolf river which
come together there. On all sides are
the wooded ridges of the Allegheny
mountains. Until two years ago it was
thirty-five miles to the nearest rail-
road. Many men who went to war
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
eighteenth century and into the TWEEN
tieth- That is what Corporal York did.
All the people in this region are of
Scotch, English. Welsh and Irish
stock Their ancestors came down
thru the mountains from Virginia and
North Carolina in Colonial days, and
the lands haYe been held by the same
lilies is the Clemens family which pro-
duced Mark Twain. He was born at
Jamestown, the county seat of Fen
tress county. His father owned large
areas of land near there, which he
| sold and traded about in such a way
as to immortalize bis name; for they
are still trying to/straighten out the
titles to the Clemens lands, and the
old mans dealings promise to furnish
occupation for many more genera
/ of Ia
York is the third from the top" as
they say down here. in family of nine
children, and is twenty-seven years
old. His father having died, and his
two older brothers married, he became
the head of the family and took care
of his mother and the family home
stead. He once described himself as
being "a kind of a mommer's boy"
He is not, however. given to de-
scribing himself at length. In this
country where people never talk much
unless they are running for office, the
Yorlis had a reputation for silence.
His father is said often to have gone
thru a whole day in the company of
a friend without saying word. And
, he didn't mean to be unsociable either.
Corporal Yo-. took after him.
The York estate comprises forty
5 acres of land, of which part is rich
bottom land, but most is hill country.
The house has one room on the ground
floor, which is dining room, sitting
= room and all, while the loft is every
| body's bed room. The kitchen is a
l>an-to built against the house. The
farm crops are corn and hay, nd the
livestock consists of a pair of mules,
5 a COW. some hogs and chickens. All
about the place is tall virgin timber.
5 So Corporal York, before he went
| to war. lived in the one-room house
in a clearing, which was the usual
home of the American pioneer, and
the life he lived was just such a life
/ as his forefatherS had lived for gen.
; erations. When not engaged in tilling
his forty-acre farm, he commonly
went hunting. All of the men there
abouts go hunting and are good shots.
but York was especially efficient with
. the rifle. The standard and fayorite
game of the section is the squirrel
Every man has a squirrel dog and a
good one is worth thirty-five or forty
dollars. The dog trees the squirrel.
, and the hunter shoots Railways thru
} the head, so as not to manTle the
meat. II you want to know how Cor
poral York learned to shoot. try to
knock a squirrel out of tall hickory
tree with a rifle, shooting alwa for
the head. They also hunt foxes here,
: running them with dogs and bringing
down the swift quarry>from a stand"
: On autumn nights coon hunting is in
2 order. The coon is chase, up a tree
by the dogs. In the old days the tree
7 was then always chopped down, so
that the dogs and the coon could fight
it out, no matter who owned the tree
or how valuable it was. Recently,
{ owing to the high price of lumber. a
= sentiment against cutting down a ten
dollar tree to get a one dollar coon
! has developed, and this is regarded
with contempt by the old timers as
, a sign of the degenerate modern mer-
cenary spirit.
The law in this section is whatever
| local custom does
approve of restricting a mans per-
sonII freedom. That is fact of prime
t importance to the understanding to
Corporal York. Every man here car
t ries gun. and is prepared as a mat
S ter of course to shoot anyone who
presumes to trespass on his premises.
? Every man who wants to do so makes
: his own whisky. keeps it in his house