“FOR THIS MY SON WAS DEAD, AND IS ALIVE AGAIN; HE WAS LOST; AND IS
FOUND.”
He was lost by the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps.
He was officially dead as a result of official misinformation.
He was entombed by the French Government.
It took the better part of three months to find him and bring him back
to life—with the help of powerful and willing friends on both sides of
the Atlantic. The following documents tell the story:
104 Irving Street,
Cambridge, December 8, 1917.
President Woodrow Wilson,
White House,
Washington, D. C.
Mr. President:
It seems criminal to ask for a single moment of your time. But I am
strongly advised that it would be more criminal to delay any longer
calling to your attention a crime against American citizenship in which
the French Government has persisted for many weeks—in spite of constant
appeals made to the American Minister at Paris; and in spite of
subsequent action taken by the State Department at Washington, on the
initiative of my friend, Hon. ——.
The victims are two American ambulance drivers, Edward Estlin Cummings
of Cambridge, Mass., and W—— S—— B——….
More than two months ago these young men were arrested, subjected to
many indignities, dragged across France like criminals, and closely
confined in a Concentration Camp at La Ferté Macé; where, according to
latest advices they still remain—awaiting the final action of the
Minister of the Interior upon the findings of a Commission which passed
upon their cases as long ago as October 17.
Against Cummings both private and official advices from Paris state
that there is no charge whatever. He has been subjected to this
outrageous treatment solely because of his intimate friendship with
young B——, whose sole crime is—so far as can be learned—that certain
letters to friends in America were misinterpreted by an over-zealous
French censor.
It only adds to the indignity and irony of the situation to say that
young Cummings is an enthusiastic lover of France and so loyal to the
friends he has made among the French soldiers, that even while
suffering in health from his unjust confinement, he excuses the
ingratitude of the country he has risked his life to serve by calling
attention to the atmosphere of intense suspicion and distrust that has
naturally resulted from the painful experience which France has had
with foreign emissaries.
Be assured, Mr. President, that I have waited long—it seems like
ages—and have exhausted all other available help before venturing to
trouble you.
1. After many weeks of vain effort to secure effective action by the
American Ambassador at Paris, Richard Norton of the Norton-Harjes
Ambulance Corps to which the boys belonged, was completely discouraged,
and advised me to seek help here.
2. The efforts of the State Department at Washington resulted as
follows:
i. A cable from Paris saying that there was no charge against Cummings
and intimating that he would speedily be released.
ii. A little later a second cable advising that Edward Estlin Cummings
had sailed on the Antilles and was reported lost.
iii. A week later a third cable correcting this cruel error and saying
the Embassy was renewing efforts to locate Cummings—apparently still
ignorant even of the place of his confinement.
After such painful and baffling experiences, I turn to you—burdened
though I know you to be, in this world crisis, with the weightiest task
ever laid upon any man.
But I have another reason for asking this favor. I do not speak for my
son alone; or for him and his friend alone. My son has a mother—as
brave and patriotic as any mother who ever dedicated an only son to a
great cause. The mothers of our boys in France have rights as well as
the boys themselves. My boy’s mother had a right to be protected from
the weeks of horrible anxiety and suspense caused by the inexplicable
arrest and imprisonment of her son. My boy’s mother had a right to be
spared the supreme agony caused by a blundering cable from Paris saying
that he had been drowned by a submarine. (An error which Mr. Norton
subsequently cabled that he had discovered six weeks before.) My boy’s
mother and all American mothers have a right to be protected against
all needless anxiety and sorrow.
Pardon me, Mr. President, but if I were President and your son were
suffering such prolonged injustice at the hands of France; and your
son’s mother had been needlessly kept in Hell as many weeks as my boy’s
mother has—I would do something to make American citizenship as sacred
in the eyes of Frenchmen as Roman citizenship was in the eyes of the
ancient world. Then it was enough to ask the question, “Is it lawful to
scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?” Now, in France, it
seems lawful to treat like a condemned criminal a man that is an
American, uncondemned and admittedly innocent!
Very respectfully,
EDWARD CUMMINGS
This letter was received at the White House. Whether it was received
with sympathy or with silent disapproval is still a mystery. A
Washington official, a friend in need and a friend indeed in these
trying experiences, took the precaution to have it delivered by
messenger. Otherwise, fear that it had been “lost in the mail” would
have added another twinge of uncertainty to the prolonged and exquisite
tortures inflicted upon parents by alternations of misinformation and
official silence. Doubtless the official stethoscope was on the heart
of the world just then; and perhaps it was too much to expect that even
a post-card would be wasted on private heart-aches.
In any event this letter told where to look for the missing
boys—something the French government either could not or would not
disclose, in spite of constant pressure by the American Embassy at
Paris and constant efforts by my friend Richard Norton, who was head of
the Norton-Harjes Ambulance organization from which they had been
abducted.
Release soon followed, as narrated in the following letter to Major ——
of the staff of the Judge Advocate General in Paris.
February 20, 1921.