Lorain Times-Herald Front Page – May 23, 1918

 

I’ll finish out the week here on the blog with yet another vintage newspaper front page. This one is from the Lorain Times-Herald from May 23, 1918 – 103 years ago this month. World War I was still raging but would end later that year.

There’s plenty of interesting things to peruse on the front page. As a card-carrying member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, I probably was most interested in the passing of Moses Rupp, the oldest Civil War veteran in Lorain County at that time.

Like many of his contemporaries, he was quite a character. As the article noted, “The decedent was the oldest Civil War veteran in last year’s Memorial Day parade. At the time he said: “I’m 90, but I wish I was 19. I would like to fight once more for the Stars and Stripes, and for the same principles I fought for in the Sixties.”

Elsewhere on the page, James Carter, Jr. of Elyria was being recognized for his actions in the World War. He volunteered to participate in the hazardous task of blocking of a harbor. Ten of the nineteen men on his ship lost their lives by either German gunfire or by drowning. Carter was likely to receive the Victoria Cross.

Probably the most disturbing item on the page was something that took place at National Tube. As the lead paragraph noted, “Several hundred workmen employed in the skelp mills of the National Tune took affairs in their own hands last night at 6 o’clock and let it be known to the world that they are thoroughly patriotic and will permit no alleged ‘slackers’ to associate with them. Without the knowledge of officials of the company the men drove a workmen out of the mill and painted his back with the word “slacker,” because he refused to contribute to the war chest fund.

On a happier note, an article at the bottom of the page noted that Thomas Crump, a Lorain man working as a janitor at the Majestic Apartments, had seven sons in active military service, and fourteen nephews as well in various branches of the U. S. and British armed forces. Crump was a native of England and had served in the British Navy himself; he had moved to the States thirteen years earlier and had been a Lorain resident for some time.