© Jerry F. Couch

IN 1914, GERMANY INVADED BELGIUM. This invasion caused widespread suffering among the Belgian people. Many were starving. Americans were sympathetic and relief efforts were quickly organized.

The newspaper clippings that follow are from the December 11, 1914 edition of The World News of Roanoke, Virginia. They provides details of how people in St. Paul responded to the crisis.

Among the local donors on the list, we find the names of (perhaps) all the merchants and businesspeople in St. Paul. While the amount of their individual donations may seem small to modern eyes, here’s something to consider. In 1914, $1 had the buying power of approximately $31 in 2016 dollars. The total contribution by St. Paulians would be the equivalent of $1,895 in 2016 dollars when adjusted for inflation. Not bad for a town as small as St. Paul in those days.

In 1914, the US had not entered the European conflict. That would not happen until April 6, 1917 following the sinking of the liner “Lusitania” by the German Navy, and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este (part of present-day Germany and Italy).

President Woodrow Wilson, a moralist and an intellectual, had previously pursued a foreign policy of nonintervention. He believed peace, not war, brings prosperity to the world. However, conflicts around the world continued to escalate despite US diplomatic efforts. The path forward became disappointingly clear.

In elementary school years ago, many of us learned to recite the poem “In Flanders Fields” which is about WWI. It was written by Dr. John McCrae in 1915 after witnessing the death of a friend from enemy artillery fire in the Flanders region of Belgium.

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