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5 iV' ■ THE SUN, NEWBERRY, S. FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1938 Sinking of the "Panay" Recalls "Caroline" Incident of 100 Years Ago President of United States Then, as Now, Was Faced with a Neutrality Problem Which Became More Serious When the Destruction of an American-Owned Ship by Canadians and the Killing of an American Citizen Brought Us to the Verge of War with Great Britain. 45 Western Newspaper Union. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON T HERE was a war on for eign soil and, although it was no affair of ours, American sympathies were definitely enlisted on the side of one of the parties involved. Then an American ship was destroyed and an American citizen killed. As the tide of popular in dignation over this affair mounted higher, the Presi dent of the United States, foreseeing the possibility of our becoming involved in the war, issued a proclamation declaring that our neutrality laws must be enforced. Does all that have a famil iar sound—as though it might be a brief resume of an inci dent still fresh in our minds? Well, it isn’t—if you’re think ing of the recent sinking of the American gunboat, the Panay, by the Japanese. It happened just 100 years ago. The “war” was the Ca nadian rebellion of 1837-38. The American ship that was destroyed was the Caroline, the citizen who was killed was one Durfree and the President who found it neces sary to issue a neutrality proclamation was Martin Van Bweii. Moreover, at that time there was quite as much possibility that we might go to war with Great Britain over the “Caroline incident” as there was recent ly that we might be fighting Japan as a result of the Panay sinking. And there is enough parallelism between the two cases to justify com ment once more on how “his tory repeats itself.” In fact, there is another paral lelism, another case of “history repeating itself,” which was at the very root of the trouble. In 1837 there was much discontent in Canada over British rule in that country, especially in regard to taxation, just as there had been in the Thirteen Colonies be- WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE fore the American Revolution. Other means of gaining redress for their grievances having failed, the Canadians emulated their American cousins by re sorting to violence. In Lower Canada, the French Canadians, led by their hero, Louis Papineau, started an insur rection in November, 1837 which resulted in bloodshed at St. Denis and St. Charles, not far from Montreal. But this rebellion was quickly crushed. In Upper Canada the principal leader of the rebels was a news paper editor named William Lyon Mackenzie, whose armed mob captured the city of Toronto on the night of December 4. 1837. Thereupon Col. Allan Macnab, speaker of the house of assem bly and representative of the Crown, raised a force of volun teers which soon defeated and dispersed the rebels. A Price on His Head. Mackenzie escaped to Buffalo, ■N. Y., with a price of $4,000 set upon his head. On December 12 he held a public meeting in Buffalo to call for American volunteers to aid in the Canadian fight for liberty. The next day with 25 men, commanded by an American named Van Rensselaer, he seized Navy island, belonging to Can ada and situated in the Niagara river a short distance above Ni agara falls. Here he established a provisional government with a flag of its own, a great seal and all the other appurtenances of a new nation, including paper mon ey of its own! By January, 1838, there were several hundred men, principal- PRESIDENT VAN BUREN ly Americans, on the island. They began throwing up breast works facing the Canadian shore and secured a small steamboat named the Caroline which brought supplies to them from Fort Schlosser, an American out post nearly opposite the town of Chippewa. On the night of December 29, 1837, Colonel Mlacnab led a party of Canadian militia across the river to seize the Caroline. It so happened, however, that the ship, instead of being tied up at the island, was at Fort Schlosser on the American shore. Since Great Britain was not at war with the United States, it was a serious matter for them to seize an American ship in an Ameri can port. But Colonel Macnab decided that the situation war ranted such action. So he and his men boarded he Caroline and in the fight which followed several men were killed, among them an American named Durfree. Taking the re mainder of the crew prisoners, the Canadians set fire to the Car oline and set her adrift to be car ried to destruction over the falls. This invasion of American ter ritory caused the greatest indig nation throughout the country, especially in New York, where many excited citizens were in favor of going to war with Eng land at once. But President Van Buren was not to be stampeded into hasty action. On January 5, 1838, he issued a proclamation in which he recited the fact that Navy island had been seized by a force, composed partly of Americans and led by an Amer ican, with arms and supplies pro cured in this country. He de clared that the neutrality laws would be rigidly enforced and the. offenders punished, nor would they receive aid from the United States in whatever diffi culties they might be involved by their violation of friendly terri tory. The War Ends. On the same day he sent Gen. Winfield Scott, one of the heroes of the War of 1812, to the Ni agara frontier and in a special message to congress asked for power to prevent a repetition of such offenses. Because of the excitement over the Caroline’s destruction, his request resulted in a hot debate in congress. But eventually that body acceded to his request. On January 13 Mackenzie’s rebels abandoned Navy island and the “war” for the time was over. However, excitement and disorder continued along the bor der and in the fall of 1838 there were several minor incur sions into Canada by American sympathizers of the rebels. As a result of these raids Pres ident Van Buren issued another proclamation calling upon mis guided or deluded Americans to abandon such projects which were not only dangerous to their own country but fatal to those whom they were presumably try ing to aid. He declared that if they were captured in Canada, they would be left to the justice of the government whose dominions they had “without the shadow of justification or excuse, nefari ously invaded.” These strong statements did much to dampen the ardor of the sympathetic Americans and deprived of their aid, the rebellion soon collapsed. More than 900 of the rebels were arrested by the Canadian authorities and 180 were sen tenced to be hanged. Only a few were executed, however, al though some were banished to Van Dieman’s Land. But the ma- ority were pardoned on account of their youth. Mackenzie fled to Buffalo where he was arrest ed and indicted for violation of our neutrality laws. After his indictment he addressed many public meetings throughout the United States in behalf of his cause. But his efforts thus to arouse sympathy for himself were fruit less and in 1839 he was tried and convicted. He appealed to Van Buren for a pardon which was refused until he had served two- thirds of his sentence in prison. Because of this Mackenzie be came a persistent and vindictive enemy of the President, doing much to stir up partisan feeling against Van Buren as “a tool of the British.” Although the excitement over the Canadian rebellion soon died down in the United States, this did not end the diplomatic trou bles between the United States and Great Britain which result ed from that affair. In fact, an even more dangerous complica tion soon arose over the fact that the American named Durfree had been killed at that time. The British government had avowed that this invasion of American soil was a public act and a necessary measure of self- defense. However, the American government was not satisfied that this avowal was made in an authentic manner. But nothing more was done about the matter while Van Buren was President. In November, 1840, a certain Alexander McLeod came to New York from Canada and began boasting that he was the actual slayer _of Durfree. He was at once arrested on a charge of murder and thrown into prison. This angered the British authori ties and when McLeod was con victed they took such a strong stand on the subject that the threat of war became even great er than it had been in 1838. A Diplomatic Problem. When William Henry Harrison succeeded Van Buren as Presi dent, Daniel Webster became secretary of state and the Mc Leod case was one of the first knotty problems which he was called upon to solve. He was greatly hampered by the fact that McLeod was within the power of the New York courts and that the federal authorities had no juris diction over him. So when Henry S. Fox, British ambassador to the United States, made a formal demand upon Webster for the release of Mc Leod, in which he declared that Great Britain made a full avowal of the burning of the Caroline as a public act, it placed our secretary of state in a very diffi cult position. The only way out was to secure McLeod’s release from prison, separate him, dip lomatically, from the Caroline af fair and then take that up as • distinct matter for negotiation with the British government. Webster’s first step was to send the United States attorney gen eral to Lockport, N. Y., where McLeod was held, and get is touch with the Canadian’s poun* sel, furnishing them with authen tic information that the destruc tion of the Caroline was a public act and that therefore the New York authorities could not hold him. This tossed the responsi bility for McLeod and the conse quent question of peace or war with Great Britain squarely into the lap of the New York authori ties. At first they seemed little in clined to help the federal govern ment in its difficulty. McLeod’s attorney came before the state supreme court with a writ of habeas corpus in July, 1841. But the court refused to release him on the grour^i set forth in Web ster’s instructions to the attorney general and he was remanded for trial in October. This proved even more embarrassing to the federal government for the situ ation was highly explosive and almost anything might happen before October. However, when McLeod was brought to trial it developed that he was a mere braggart who had not even been present when Dur free was killed. So he was ac quitted and this “international in cident” not only dissolved in thin air but it smoothed the way to the negotiation of the Webster- Ashburton treaty which settled virtually all of the questions that had been in dispute between the United States and Great Britain. Although Mackenzie failed in his revolt, he sowed the seeds which eventually bore fruit for the cause he had espoused and it is interesting to note that his grandson, William Lyon Macken zie King, who had become pre mier of Canada, helped harvest those fruits 93 years later. When the Act of Westminster, putting into writing for the first time the constitution of the British Com monwealth of Nations, was passed by the British house of commons in 1930 that important piece of legislation was a direct result of the efforts of the Cana dian “rebel.” William Lyon Mackenzie and his “armed mob” were put to utter rout after the merest ex cuse of a battle, but the few shots they fired started the British em pire on its march toward the goal of autonomy under one crown. The fight which the grand- fathex- lost with a toll of one man killed, two executed and several exiled, paved the way for the constitutional triumph of the grandson which removed the last vestiges of old colonialism from all the self-governing units of the British empire. The battle of Montgomery’s farm, whose site near Toronto is not even marked by a brass plate, is now recognized as of greater import to things British than Cressy, Agincourt or Plas- sy. Mackenzie showed his utter uselessness as a general and a politician. Yet it was the rebellion he organized and the battle he so completely lost that started the constitutional movement toward complete national status realized in the regime of his grandson. The Mackenzie rebellion was not as serious as the uprising at the same time in Lower Canada, led by Papineau. But in Lower Canada there was racial division. It was the French who attempted to throw off what had become the galling yoke of incompetent British officialdom. A rising of French against British did not strike home to London in the same way. It was the little outbreak of British against British in the wil derness of Upper Canada that Historic Hoaxes se By ELMO SCOTT WATSON e Western Newspaper Union. GEN. WINFIELD SCOTT caused the home government to realize something was radically wrong and resulted in Lord Dur ham coming to Canada to in vestigate. Lord Durham’s report marked the turning point in the reaction against democratic tendencies, Britain’s method of preventing another American Revolution. It foreshadowed the union of all the Canadas and laid the basic formulae on which has gradually been built the statiis of nation hood secured in 1930. Even after Lord Durham, com plete responsible government did not come without a parliamen tary struggle; but the home gov ernment had learned its lesson in the rebellion and never again was there serious overseas inter ference in the constitutional de velopment toward autonomy, The next great step came with confederation and the birth of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Since then constitutional prog ress has been as steady as the growth of the country. In Canada today there is no move toward separation. The breaking of imperial ties has only strengthened the bonds of loyal ty. Canada is not in any way bound to the old country. The Act of Westminster proclaimed to the world that the empire had become John Bull & Sons, Inc., with all the sons carrying on in dependent companies in which John Bull has not even a seat in the directonte. There are still sore points for Canadian nationalists, however. The British tie in the past re sulted in diplomatic acts in which Canada’s interests and Canada’s territory were ruthlessly sacri ficed to the United States on the altar of British expediency. Ca nadians still remember the Maine boundary, the Oregon dis pute and the Alaskan panhandle fiasco. But Canada now has its own diplomatic channels and British world affairs no longer affect Ca nadian claims. Grounds for dis putes have been removed and Canada, a nation belonging to the league of British nations by its own choice, has lost any desire it might have had to sever the im perial link. And the strongest bonds of em pire were forged during the re gime of the man whose grand father proclaimed Canada a re public and led an army of farm ers to carry out his proclam* tion. Wolf! Wolf! E'OR several years, just as regu- 1 larly ac winter came around, press association dispatches carried the news about hunters up in Can ada having to fight for their lives against packs of ferocious timber wolves. In fact, a winter without such a wolf story was like a winter without Christmas and Santa Claus. And strangely enough all of these stories came from the town of Al- goma. And then when the whole nation had become thoroughly “wolf-con scious” (and “Algoma-conscious”) J. W. Curran, editor of the Sault Ste. Marie Daily Star, confessed that it was all a hoax. He had at- temped to interest outside newspa pers in the resources of the Algoma wilderness and had failed. So he turned to wolves to help him. The non-existent ferocious beasts turned the tritk. Tourists were attracted to the area in increasing numbers. Even the discovery there of low grade iron ore deposits as the result of the provincial government’s offer ing a bounty for developing iron ore beds is credited to the wolf campaign. But after awhile Mr. Curran be came tired of hearing his paper caUed the “Wolf Gazette.” He had accomplished his purpose and in an editorial he exposed the hoax. He said, “Any man who says he was et by a wolf is a liar.” Then he offered a $500 reward for any one who could claim that an Algoma man had been attacked by a wolf. That reward is still standing for no one has yet tried to collect the $500. There are wolves in that region but it seems that they’re not as fierce as the “Wolf Gazette” once claimed they were. • • • The Archko Volume IN 1879 Rev. W. D. Mahan, a Cum- * berland Presbyterian minister of Boonville, Mo., published a book called “The Archko Volume.” It purported to be an official report of the trial and death of Jesus Christ, made directly to the Emperor Ti berius by Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, which Mahan asserted he had obtained from the Vatican in Rome. Its authenticity was immediately attacked but Mahan defended his work so vigorously that many peo ple were convinced that it was genu ine. Later he expanded the book with the addition of other docu ments, giving mauy new “facts” about the life of Christ. These, he asserted, he had obtained in the Vatican and in Constantinople. Since that time the Archko Vol ume has been reprinted in many different editions in many different cities; it has been translated into foreign languages and thousands of copies of it have been sold all over the world. Despite the fact that Dr. Edgar J. Goodspeed of the Uni versity of Chicago, an eminent au thority on early Christian literature, has proved that the book is a fake from beginning to end, many people still believe it authentic. And strangely enough an original print ing of this fake is now considered a rarity and a valuable piece of Americana, and several copies have been sold for as much as $50 each. • • • A Bath for Miss Liberty T O THE city editor of every New York newspaper several years ago came an announcement from the “American Patriotic League” that the Statue of Liberty was going to be given a bath. It had been de cided that the film of dust and smoke from passing steamers must be removed from Bartholdi’s fa mous statue but in order to avoid possible injury to the metal, the an nouncement said, a new supersuds solution would be used. The story, printed in all th epa- pers, was picked up by the press associations and carried all over the country. Immediately the col umnists and newspaper paragraph- ers began making wisecracks about Miss Liberty’s bath and it became one of the leading topics of the day. But when an inquiry about the pro posed bath was made at the War department, which then had juris diction over Bedloe’s island, of ficials there said they knew nothing about the matter. Then one New York editor became suspicious. He dug up the original announcement and looked at the address of the “American Patriotic League.” By a strange coincidence it was the same address as that of an ad vertising agency handling publicity for a soap company that was ready to put a new soap product on the market! Beer Is Very Old Historically, beer is of great an tiquity. It was manufactured by the Egyptians and by the Greeks, Romans and ancient Gauls. The Romans are supposed to have intro duced the art of brewing into Brit ain, the only intoxicating beverages used by the Britons previous to the Roman conquest being mead and cider. Ale seems to have been the current name in England for malt liquor in general before the intro duction of the use of hops from Germany about 1524. DORIS DEDE S tOLumn Young Couple Require a Home of Their Own for Happiness. T'\EAR MISS DENE: I am twenty- five years old and the girl 1 love is very anxious to get married. Her people have money and we can go to live with them after our mar riage but I am against this. How ever, my fiancee insists and says she will not wait to marry me if I don’t agree. Actually I couldn’t give her a home of her own for two or three years and she knows this. But she is keen on my living with her parents, and for some reason I can not look to the future with any en joyment. I am worried and upset about this affair. Give me your opinion.—D. R. K. ANSWER—When a maiden is so determined to marry that she actu ally forces her young man to the altar against his wishes and against all rules of common sense, she is dem onstrating clearly the fact that she is more in love with the idea of marriage than with her future hus band. And she is also showing a lack of character which bodes ill for her matrimonial future. It is sheer weakness to rush into marriage when there isn’t sufficient capital to finance the undertaking. It argues that the impatient lady is over-anx ious to attain to the dignity of be ing a “Mrs.”—that she is perhaps too much concerned with showing her friends that she’s captured her man—or that she fears ridicule if she sticks too long to a suitor who is unable to offer her an engage ment ring and a smart little apart ment on the right side of town. Her cry is therefore: “Give me mar riage at any price—even at the cost of my husband’s self-respect ” What kind of love is this—which demands such a sacrifice from the beloved? And what kind of woman is this who welcomes the prospect of living in some body else’s home? Show me a woman who doesn’t want a home of her own— who doesn’t long to be mistress of her own domain—and VU show you a hay little bride who prefers to have mother do all the working and worrying. Once this type of damsel becomes snugly en sconced in mother’s nice comfortable home, it will take more than a mere man’s wish to pry her out. Let her get used to having somebody else do the planning and budgeting and she’ll refuse to change the state of affairs go long es she lives. Her family and her husband suf fer the consequences. A too indul gent father and mother let their de clining years be burdened with an extra family around tni house. And a patient long suffering husband has to get used to being a permanent guest in the home of his wife’s peo ple. However kind his in-laws may be, they cannot help showing some re sentment over the situation. IT)EAR MISS DENE: I have been in love with a boy tor years. He is popular with the girls, and al though he says he loves me I have caught him cheating on several oc casions. I have forgiven him, and taken him back time after time. I have gone looking for him, when he has not been around to see fne. He earns practically no money and is not a good worker. I want to help him as I know his upbringing was unfortunate. Sometimes he seems to care for me, and other times he doesn’t write for months or come near me. I would be heart broken to go through life without him. Whenever I try to reason with him he reminds me that I haven’t as many boy friends as be has girl friends. That is true as I am natur ally shy and reserved. Please help. —M. V. H. ANSWER—You’re too young to go in for reforming an indolent youth who uses your affection and your good-nature as a pleasant refuge from the cares of his crowded life. The fact that he is still adolescent enough to gloat over the number of girl friends he’s able to annex means that he can’t be taken se riously by anyone. Obviously the reason he’s treating you so badly is that he feels it would injure his reputation as a Don Juan if he were to show one girl too much attention. You can do him no greater harm than by encouraging him to believe your sympathy and devotion are al ways on hand when he becomes a little weary of his round of pleas ures. You strengthen his conceit and his be lief in himself when you take snub after snub and doggedly pursue him with the determination to reform him at whatever cost. No weak sinner was ever reformed by being spoiled, flattered and humored. Life must teach him some sharp lessons before he understands clearly the erfor of his ways and the necessity for re pentance. So if I were you, M. V. H., I should give your wandering hero a long rest and plenty of time in which to stand on his own feet and face his own problems without the comforting assurance in his heart that you’re just around the comer waiting to spoil him to death when he is in need of sympathy. No lazy, shiftless boy ever re solved to do better things because his sweetheart made it clear that she was an ever present source of affectionate sympathy. The wise girl knows when to withhold for giveness in order to strengthen the character of the man she loves. ® Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. TIPS,. -ardeners Prepare Soil Early P I GARDENING an early start is important. Size up your gar den to determine what can be done to improve the soil. Spade or plow early. Any soil is enriched by manure. Clay soils are improved in texture and sandy soils are improved in wa ter-holding capacity by spading under manure, rotted leaves or lawn clippings, or rotted garden refuse. Complete commercial fertilizers are everywhere available. Ask your dealer for fertilizer suited to your soil, and get from him definite instructions on how to ap ply it. It is important to use fertilizer cautiously. According to Harold Coulter, vegetable expert, an ex cess is often harmful. Garden preparation effort is wasted if you do not plant seeds from dependable sources. Select your favorite varieties at the nearby store before the supply is depleted. Make sure they are freshly packed. In planting, a primary consid eration is to have the soil favor ably moist—damp, but not wet. MEN LOVE GIRLS WITH PEP n nm an pappy and full of !un, a o daneaa and partin. B Ufcleaa and alt. you to daneaa and partiaa. BUT, tf yon I tlra ^rani n't be an cron, Ufcleaa and tired, man interested. 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