Evening star., 1936-04-12
Capital Sidelights
By viii p. Kennedy.

when I get to be an old man." Rep
resentative William p Connery of Mas
sachuSetts told the House Committee on
the Library the other day, Il expect the
greatest thing in my life to look back
upon will be the memory of how was
able to cheer up and entertain the
doughboys in the trenches" His COL
leagues on the committee spent an en-
joyable hour hearing some of the stories
and songs with which he built up morale
at the front 18 years ago. One of the
happiest moments of his life, he said,
was when he cried on receiving letter
from the mother of a boy whose hos
pital bed was next to his own. That
was two months after the boy died, but
his last letter to his mother was cheerful,
telling her how Connery had eased his
sufferings by singing to him What
Could You Expect From Man Named
McCarthy?"
The Library Committee had invited
Representative Connery to testify re-
garding the work done in entertaining
the doughboys by George M. Cohan and
Elsie Janis. He told his own experiences
in boxing ring presenting a minstrel
show while German shells whizzed
overhead adding their shrill whistle to
the music of the band, with several
thousand soldiers applauding-just to
emphasize most forcibly what Cohan
did for the entire A. E. F. when he
wrote over There Elsie Janis did won
derful work in France. It was mar
velous. She came out to the front line
and sang to the boys and was the idol
Of our soldiers
Then he told of how in the Toul sector,
at Aulnois. she said rs there not some
one in your regiment who can entertain
me?"-and the cry went up for Bill"
Connery. This proved exceedingly en-
barrassing for Connery because he was
A. w. o. L., having sneaked over to Toul
for two nights to eat his first squash pie
in year with Joe McInerney, <. OF C.
secretary from his home town, Lynn,
Mass. Il ate four squash pies that day
at one sitting" Connery told the COM
mittee
THE first thing in the mind of any
man in any regiment OF the A. E. F.
coming out of the trenches was-first,
food; then a smoke, and then it was
Where is the band?' Give us the band, "
said Connery. They wanted music
they wanted their morale lifted up. I
saw that so many times along all of
the fronts. In the little French villages
I saw these men on the tops Of French
huts, and on stone walls, and lying on
the ground listening to the band; I
saw them coming from all sections. 1t
did something big for them; it built
up their morale"
The House committee was not only
we'll entertained by Connery but deeply
impressed, because they knew he was
speaking from the experiences that try
mems souls-that give them true un-
derstanding of many things. Connery
had been on the vaudeville stage for 10
years before the World War-a college
graduate. He won promotion from pri-
vate to regimental color sergeant for
meritorious service. He took part in
all the major operations. In Congress
for IA years he has been leader in
legislation for war veterans, is chairman
of the Committee on Labor and has
won universal recognition for his sim
cerity and ability.
Congress now has before it proposal
to observe the sesquicentennlal OF the
Constitution by erecting monument to
Gouverneur Morris, the "penman" who
took most active part in the debate
drafting that immortal document" and
who drew the final draft in the revision
of the fundamental law of the land,
about which there has been so much
recent controversy in high places. Rep
resentative Edward w. Curley OF New
York last week made personal appeal
to his fellow members to authorize such
a monument in the historical burying
ground where his remains are buried at
141st street and st. AIMS avenue, in the
borough of the Bronx, New York City.
There sleep also he said, scores OF other
members of the famous patriotic Morris
| family, including Mary Walton Morris,
known as the mother of patriots" and
Gouverneur's wife. Anne Carey Ran
| dolph, seventh in line from Pocahontas,
Indian princess.
Representative Curley included in his
appreciation of Morris extracts from a
biographical work by Theodore Roose-
welt, who said: Perhaps his greatest
| interest for us lies in the fact that he
was shrewder, more far-seeing observer
and recorder of contemporary men and
events, both at home and abroad. than
any other American or foreign states
man of his time"