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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (May 30, 1918)
THE BEE: OMAHA, THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1918. 13 1:1 Hart?!! Laudet? in tfte Wat? Zone c? c7i?Tsfrel in France" 7k fkffis ZPersoxat '' experiences on'tAc WesiefTtOtgAtn t&pont- ; COPYRl&HT 1918 CHAPTER XI. The Call to France. v I" could not, much as I should in ' Xiany ways have liked to do so, pro ong my stay in Scotland. The peace ,ind the restfulness of the Highlands, the charm of the heather and the hills, the long, lazy days with my red, 'whipping some favorite stream ah, ihey made me happy for a moment, put they could not make me forget! p-ly duty called me back, and the thought of war, and suffering, and there were moments when it seemed to me that nothing ' could keep me fftom plunging again into the work I had set out to do. In those days I was far too rest less to be taking my ease at home, in my wee hoose at Dunoon. A thousand activities called me. The rest had been necessary; I had had to admit that, and to obey my doc tor, for I had been feeling the strain of my long continued activity, piled tip, at it was, on top of my grief and care. .And yet I was eager to be off and about my work again. I did not want to go back to the same work I had been doing. No! I was still a young man. I was younger than men and officers who were tak ing their turn in the trenches. I was but 46 years old, and there was a lot of life and snap in the old dog yet! My life had been rightly lived. As a young man I had worked in a pit, ye ken. and that had given me a strength in my back and my legs that would nave served me well in the trenches War, these days, means hard work as well as fighting more, indeed. War is a business, a great industry, now. There is all manner of wdrk that must be done at the front and right behind it. Aye, and I was eager to be there and to be do ing my share of it and not for the first time. 1 Many a time, and often. I had broached my idea of being allowed to 'nlist, e'en before the Huns killed my boy. But they would no listen to me. They told me, each time, that there ,was more and better work for me to do at hame in Britain, spurring others on, cheering them when they tame back maimed and broken, get ting the country to put its ' shoulder to tht ' wheel when it came to sub tcribing to the war loans and all the rest o it. And it seemed to me . that it was not for me to decide: that I must obey those who were better In a position to judge than I could be. ' I went down south to England, ind I talked again of enlisting and trying to get a crack at those who had killed my boy. And again my friends refused to listen to me. "Why, Harry," they said to me and not my own friends, only, but men highly placed enough to make me know that I must pay heed to what they said "you must not think of it! If you enlist, or if we got you a commission, you'd be but one man out there. Here you're worth many men t brigade, or a division, maybe. You are more Use to us than many men who go out there to fight You do great things toward winning the war every day. No, Harry, there is work for every man in Britain to do. and you have found yours and are doing it." I was not content, though, even when I seemed to agree with them. I did try to argue, but it was no use. And still I felt that it was no time for a man ,to be playing and to be giving so much of his time to mak ing others gay. It was well for folk to laugh, and to get their minds off the horror of war for a little time. Well. I knew! Aye, and I believed that I was doing good, some good at least, and giving cheer to some puir laddies who needed it sorely But weel, it was no what I wanted to be doing when my country was fighting for her life! I made up my mind, slowly, what it was that 1 1 wanted to do that would fit in with the ideas and wishes of those whose word I was bound to heed and that would still come closer than what I was doing to meet my own desires. Every day. nearly, then, I was Ret ting letters from the front. They came from laddies whom I'd helped to make up their minds that they be longed over yon, where the men were. Some were from boys who came from aboot Dunoon. I'd known those lad dies since they were bits o' bairns, most of them. And then there were letters and they touched me as much and came as close home as any of them from boys who were utter strangers to me, but who told me they felt they knew me because they'd seen me on the stage, or because their phonograph, maybe, played some of my records, and because they'd read that my boy had shared their dan gers and given his life, as they were ready, one and all, to do. And those letters, nearly all, had the same refrain. They wanted me. They wanted me to come to them, since they couldn't be coming to me. "Come on out here and see us and sing for us, Harry," they'd write to me. "It'd be a fair treat to see your mug and hear you singing about the wee hoose amang the heather or the bonnie, bonnie lassie 1" How could a man get such a plea as that and not want to do what those laddies asked? How could he think of the great deal they were do ing and not want to do the little bit they asked of him? But it was no a simple matter, ye'll ken. I could not pack a bag and start for France from Charing Cross or Victoria as I might have done and often did before the war. No one might go to France unless he had passports and leave from the war office, and many an other sort of arrangement there was to make. But I set wheels in motion. Just to go to France to sing for the boys vould have been easy enough. They told me that at once. "What? Harry Lauder wants to go to France to sing for the soldiers? He shall whenever he pleases 1 Tell him we'll be glad to send himl" So said the war office. But I knew what they meant.- They meant for me to go to one or more of the British bases and give concerts. There were troops moving in and out of the bases all the time; men who'd been in the trenches or in action in an offensive and were back in rest billets, or even further back, were there in their thousands. But it was the real front I was eager to reach. I wanted to be where my boy had been, and to see his grave. I wanted to sing for the laddies who were bearing the brunt of the big job over there while they were bearing it. And that no one had done. Many of our leading: actors and singers and other entertainers were going back and forth, to France all the time. Never a week went by but they were help ing to cheer up the boys at the bases, It was a grand work they were doing, and the boys were grateful to them, and all Britain should share that grat itude, cut it was a wee bit more that I wanted to be doing, and there was the rub. I wanted to go up to the battle lines themselves and tq sing for the boys who were in the thick of the struggle with the Hun. I wanted to give a concert in a front-line trench where the Huns could hear me, if they cared to listen. I wanted them to learn once more the lesson we could never teach them often enough the lesson of the spirit of the Brit ish army, that could go into battle with a laugh on its lips. But at first I got no encouragement at all when I told what it was in my mind to do. My friends who had in fluence shook their heads. "I'm afraid it can't be managed, Harry," they told me. "It's never been done." I told them what I believed my self, and what I have often thought of when things looked hard and pros pects were dark. I told them every thing had to be done for the first time sometime, and I begged them not to give up the effort to win my way for me. And so I knew that when they told me no one had done it before it wasn't reason enough why I shouldn t do it. And I made up my mind that I would be the pioneer in giving concerts under fire if that should turn out to be a part of the contract. But 7. could not argue. 1 could only say what it was that I wanted to do. and wait the pleasure of those whose (4 " MOVING IN THE MOVIES" 3. ft, (Li 111 jid I I I I $1 Week Clothing for Men and Women on Credit JjJ jN. W. NAKEN, 120 So. 15th Si j On or about June 1, 1 will be in my new store in the Rialto Theater Bldg., 15th Street tide. My policy of honest merchandising at honest prices and liberal terms has been appreciated by the public and has forced me to take more commodious quarters. My Methods of the Past , Are My Guarantee for the Future A Week 1 M1NU MADE IN THE U. S. AMERICAi THE VELVET GOLD FIBRE CURTAIN IN THE RIALTO THEATER Reflects to the audience, minus all eye strain, the true picture with all the tone and feeling that was put in the original negative. SWANSON & NOLAN SUPPLY CO. 106 South 14th Street OMAHA Tyler 953 REPRESENTATIVES FOR THE MINUSA CURTAIN duty it was to decide. I couldn't tell the military authorities where they must send me. It was for me to obey when they gave their orders, and to go wherever they thought I would do the most good. I would not have you thinking that I was naming condi tions, and saying I would go where I pleased or bide at hame! That was not my way. All I could do was to hope that in the end they would see matters as I did and so decide to let me have my way. But I was ready for my orders, whatever they might be. There was one thing I wanted, above all others, to do when I got to France, and so much I said. I wanted to meet the Highland brigade, and see the bonnie laddies in their kilts as the Huns saw them the Huns, who called them the Ladies from Hell, who hated them worse than they ha.ted any troops in the whole British army. Ha' ye heard the tale of the Scots man and the Jew? sandy and Ikey they were, and they were having a disputatious argument together. Each said he could name more great men of his race who were famous in his tory than the other could. And they argued, and nearly came to blows, and were no further along until they thought of making a bet. An odd bet it was. For each great name that Sandy named of a Scot whom his tory had honored he was to pull out one of Ikey's hairs, and Ikey was to have th same privilege. "Do ye begin 1" said Sandy. "Moses 1" said Ikey, and pulled. "Bobbie Burns!" cried Sandy, and returned the compliment. "Abraham!" said Ikey, and pulled again. , , "Ouch DuRgie Haie!" said Sand v. And then Ikey grabbed a handful of hairs at once. "Joseph and his brethren 1" he said, gloating a- bit as he watched the tears starting from Sandy's eyes at the pain of losing so many good hairs at once. "So it's pulling them out in bunches ye are!" said Sandy. "Ah, well, man' " And he reached witti both his hands for Ikey's thatch. "The Hieland brigade!" he roared, and pulled all the hairs his two hands would hold! Ah, weel, there are sad thoughts that come to me, as well as proud and happy ones, when I think of the bon nie kilted laddies who fought and died so nobly out there against the Hun! They were my own laddies, those, andit was with them and amang them that my boy went to his death. It was amang them I would find, I thought, those who could tell me more than I knew of how he had died, and of how he had lived before he died And I thought the boys of the brigade would be glad to see me and to hear my songs songs of their lumes and their ain land auld Scotland. And so I used what influence I had, and did not think it wrong to employ at such a time, and in such a cause. For I knew that if they sent me to the Hieland brigade they would be sending me to he front of the front line for that was there I would have to go seeking the Hieland laddies! I waited patiently as I could. And then one day I got my orders! I was delighted, for the thing they had told me could not be done had actually been arranged for me. I was asked to get ready to go to France to en tertain the soldiers, and it was the happiest day I had known since I had heard of my boy's death. There was not much for me to do in the way of making ready. The whole trip, of course, would be a mili tary on:. I might be setting out as a minstrel for France, but every, detail of my arrangements had to be made in accordance with military rules, and once I reached France I would be under the orders of the army in every movement I might make. All that was carefully explained to me. But still there were things for me to think about and to arrange. I wanted some sort of accompaniment for my songs, and how to get it pui zled me for a time. But there was a firm in London that made pianos that heard of my coming trip, and solved that problem for me. They built, and fhev presented to me, the weest piano ever you saw a piano so wee that it could be carried m an ordinary motor car. Only five octaves it had, but it was big enough, and stria' enough at once. I was delighted with it, and so were all who saw it. It weighed only about 150 pounds less than even a middling stout manl And.it was cunningly built, so that no space at all was wasted. Mrs. Lauder, when he saw it, called it cute, and so did every other woman who laid eyes upon it. It was designed to be car ried on the grid of a motor car and so it was, for many miles of shell torn roadsl When I was sure of my piano I thought another thing it would be well tor me to take with me. And so I spent 100 pounds 500 American dol larsfor cigarets. I knew they would be welcome everywhere I went. It makes no matter how many cigar ets we send to France, there will never be enough. My friends thought Beddeo, ELMER BEDDEO America's Grates! fill Wekomts America's Finest Theater "THE RIALTO" I .1417 DOUGLAS ST. The Rialto is Just Across the Street I ELECTRIC LIGHT FIXTURES In the Offices, Vestibules, Exits, Organ, Ticket Office, Etc in the RIALTO THEATER v AND STORES Supplied and Installed By 1208-12 Harney Street 1 was making a mistake in taking so many; they were afraid they would make matters hard when it came to transportation, and reminded me that I faced difficulties in that respect in r-ranee it was nearly impossible for u at home in Britain to visualize at all. But I had my mind and my heart set on getting those fags a cigaret is a fag to every Britisif soldier to my destination with me. I was not to travel alone. My tour was to include two traveling compan ions of distinction and fame. One was James Hogge, M. P., member from Fast Edinburgh, who was eager, as so many members of Parliament were, to sec for himself how things were at the front. James Hogge was one vf the members most liked by the soldiers. He had worked hard for them, and gained and well earned much fame by the way he struggled with the matter of getting the right sort of pensions for the laddies who were offering their ljves. The other distinguished companion I was to have was an old and good friend of mine, th Rev. Georgt Adam, then a secretary to the minis ter of munitions. He lived in Ilford. a stihiirh nf T.nndnn thpn. hut i now in Montreal, Canada. I was glad ol the opportunity to travel with both these men, for I knew that one's trav eling companions, on such a tour, were ot the utmost importance in determin ing its success or failure, and I could not have chosen a better pair, had the choice been left to me which, of course, it was not. There we were, you see the Rev, George Adam, Harry Lauder and James Hogge,, M. P. And no soonei did the soldiers hear of the combimv' tion than our tour was named. "The Rev. Harry Lauder, M. P., Tour" was what we were called 1 And that absurd name stuck to us through our whol journey in France, up and down the battle line, and until we came horn to. England and broke up! (Continued Tomorrow.) Rialto! Welcome To Our City! We Furnished the Velvet Gold Fibre Screen at The Rialto Two Extremely Modern 6 B. Powers Cameragraphs (A Piaturad Below) Wera Furniihed by Ui to THE RIALTO We Furnished the Lobby Display at the Rialto 5 a I f i We furnished also the Motor Generator, the Fireproof Rewinds, and the Music Rack. The "Rialto," of course, used good sound judgment in securing the above most necessary items from America's greatest specialists along these lines. We feel that the "Rialto" will offer an entertainment unlimited in merit. We extend to this newer theater our best wishes for success. ' ( See us for everything used in a photoplay h.ouse excepting the films Write or call United Theater Equipment Corporation F. A. VAN HUSEN, M.nag.r 13th and Harney Sts. 6maha Established 1870. Telephone Douglas 407 Henry Lehmann & Sons The Home of Modern Wall ' Papers and Decorative Specialties Good Painting, Wood Fininsh ing and Interior Decorating 1305 Farndm Street Omaha Pi,lJI1fllilIWHf jyUIHIipUlli. 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