THEY don’t raise their boys to be gun-shy down in the mountains of
Kentucky, so when John Calhoun Allen, of Clay County, heard that his
son had been arrested in New York as a “slacker” he was “plumb mad.”
The young man was rounded up with a bunch of other “conscientious
objectors” and taken before Judge Mayer in the Federal Court. John C.
junior told the judge that during his boyhood in the Kentucky mountains
he had witnessed so much bloodshed that he was now opposed to fighting
and had a horror of killing a man or, in fact, of being killed himself.
The judge was puzzled. He had never heard before of a Kentuckian with
any such complaint, so he packed the young man off to Bellevue for the
“once-over” while he communicated the facts to his father down in Clay
County, and, says the New York _Times_:
The answer arrived in the form of the 6 feet 2 inches of John Allen
himself. The mountaineer came into court just before the noon hour. He
wore the boots and the corduroy trousers of the Kentucky hills. His
shirt was blue, collarless, and home-made. His coat was old-fashioned,
and in his hand he carried his big black sombrero.
“May it please your honor,” said United States District Attorney Knox,
“we have with us the father of John Calhoun Allen.”
The mountaineer looked the Judge squarely in the eye and bowed. Tall
and erect, he towered above every other man in the court room and he
was not in the least embarrassed.
“Judge,” he said, “I got your letter and I thank you for it, and I
started to answer it in writin’, but decided that maybe it was better
that I come here myself and see what’s the matter with that boy of
mine. It ain’t like our folks to act as that youngster has acted, and I
assure you that I am plumb mad about it. I have five boys, and this one
who is in trouble here is the oldest. Two of my lads are already in the
Army and the two youngest will be there soon as they are old enough.
“And so I have come all the way from Kentucky to get this one who I
hear is a backslider. All I ask is for you to let me take my boy back
to Kentucky with me, and I will see to it that he comes to time when
his country calls. There ain’t going to be no quitters in the Allen
family. My boys that are already in the Army ain’t twenty-one yet. This
one is my oldest and he’s the first to miss the trail, but he’ll find
the trail again or I’ll know the reason why.”
“I have the utmost confidence in you,” said Judge Mayer after the old
man finished, “and I shall release your son in your custody, confident
that you will see to it that he obeys the law and registers.”
“He’ll register all right, Judge,” replied the old man, “and I tell you
that if he don’t, something will happen in the public square back home,
and all the folks will have a chance to see with their own eyes that
the Allens don’t stand for no quitters at a time when the country needs
all the men it can get.”
In the meantime Marshal McCarthy had sent to the Tombs for young Allen,
and the young man was waiting in the Marshal’s office when his father
arrived. They are self-contained people down in the Kentucky mountains.
Their feelings are deep, but well controlled, so that when father
and son met there was no show of emotion on the part of either. But
the sight of his son softened the father’s anger. He placed his hand
gently on the younger man’s shoulder, and this is the way _The Times_
describes the scene that followed:
“Son,” said the father, “don’t you know what it means to do what you
tried to do? Don’t you know that you don’t come from no such stock as
these slackers and quitters, or whatever else you call such cattle?
Don’t you know that, boy? Well, if you don’t, it’s time you started
learnin’. Now you ain’t crazy, for our folks don’t go crazy, and you
are goin’ to register, and you are goin’ to fight, and fight your
darnedest, too, if your country calls you. Now just put that in your
head and let it stay there. I don’t want to hurt you, and I ain’t if
you do right; but I just want to say that if you don’t do right, when I
get you back home I will take you into the public square and shoot you
myself in the presence of all the folks.”
The boy, with tears in his eyes, said he would register just as quickly
as he could.
“And I’ll fight, too, if they want me,” the boy added.
“Of course you will, for if you didn’t you wouldn’t be my son,” the old
man replied.
And that was the end of the Allen incident.
“That old fellow is one of the kind that makes the country great. He
is a real American,” said Judge Mayer afterward.
Just before he left the Federal Building, John Allen asked one of the
deputy marshals what case was being tried before Judge Mayer. (It was
the case of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.)
“I noticed a man and a woman and I wondered who they were. What did
they do?” he asked.
“They are anarchists and they are on trial for urging men not to
register for the war,” the Marshal replied.
“Those are the kind’er folks who are responsible for boys like this one
of mine gettin’ in trouble,” John Allen observed. “We don’t have folks
like that down our way.”