Texas 75th Anniversary Box Car and Spring Cheminot Communique

La Societe des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux THE SOCIETY OF 40 MEN & 8 HORSES THE GRANDE VOITURE DU TEXAS 8714 Marble Dr, El Paso, TX 79904

To Veteran Service Organizations and Veteran Supporters,

Dec 15, 2023

The attached story recently published in the Elks Magazine nicely explains about the Gratitude Train and we are fortunate to have the Texas Merci Boxcar here in Austin on public display. This is a widely forgotten event in our history that indeed tells a great story of Goodwill and Gratitude.

The Grande Voiture du Texas is asking for support in donations to sponsor the upcoming 75th Anniversary of the Gratitude Train. Sponsors will be listed in our event program. Please see the attached donor information sheet.

Donors will receive a free souvenir copy of the Program Book and Certificate of Appreciation.

We are working very hard to make the upcoming 75th Anniversary of the Gratitude Train and Texas Merci Boxcar a special event. There will be two parts to this event which will be held on Friday, March 22, 2024.

At 12:00 pm we will have the primary celebration at the Texas Military Forces Museum, Camp Mabry.

The 40 & 8 National Commander, Chef de Chemin de Fer Frank Campo will be attending and the Consul General of France from Houston, Valérie Baraban, has indicated she intends to attend. We will also have our Honorary Consul General of France Liz Wiley who has been a strong supporter of the Grand du Texas for several years now.

We have invited Commanding General United States Army Futures Command, General James Rainey and hopefully he will be available.

President of the Board for Alliance Française Richard Alexander will also be attending and several other VIPs are also being invited to attend.

At 2:00 pm we will officially open the exhibit of a selection of gifts at the Capitol Visitor Center in Austin. This event will be smaller as space is very limited, but the display will be open into July 2024.

We are also requesting you help spread the word about the Gratitude Train and these events.. The Texas Merci Boxcar is on permeant display at the Texas Military Forces Museum. However, the selection of gifts from the Texas Merci Boxcar will only be on display into July 2024 at the Capitol Visitor Center and will then be placed back into storage, likely for decades before they are on display again.

Kindest Regards,

Atch – Elks Magazine article Donor Information Sheet Boxcar Event Poster

David J. Knutson, L’Editeur

Grande Voiture du Texas

OUR 1920 FOUNDERS WERE VETERANS OF W.W.I. FRANCE. During the First World War, French boxcars carried American Doughboys to the front. These wartime boxcars, which held either 40 men or 8 horses, were emblazoned with a “40/8”; a symbol readily understood by American veterans of that era. Today our organization’s titles are in French and we meet in symbolic W.W.I. train depots, in grateful homage to the sacrifices of our Doughboy founders and indeed to honor all Americans who yet serve. -- We are most commonly known as “La Societe” or simply “The Forty & Eight”.

Please visit our website at WWW.TEXASBOXCAR.ORG

PHOTO: ALAN WILKINSON/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

A car from the Train de la Reconnaissance Française au Peuple Américain, also known as the Merci Train or the Gratitude Train, is shown on display outside the Railway Village Museum in Boothbay, Maine. The car was one of forty-nine such decorated vintage railroad cars that were filled with gifts and sent from France to the United States in 1949 to thank the American people for the Friendship Train, which was sent to Europe in 1947 full of badly needed food staples and other supplies.

Friendship and Gratitude: The US Friendship Train and the French Merci Train TOM SCUDDER

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n the winter of 1947, shipments of staple foods and other supplies were sent from the American people to the people of France and Italy. The following words, translated into either French or Italian, were written on the shipments: “In a spirit of democratic and Christian goodwill, we Americans have worked to bring these products from our fields to your homes. We hope they will help you until the day when your harvests will be abundant and beautiful again.” The much-needed supplies were gathered for the people of France and Italy during a spontaneous outpouring of support from the American people. Less than two years later, the French people demonstrated their gratitude by sending a train named for the French word for “thank you”—the Merci Train—to carry artwork and other gifts to the United States. The tale of the two trains, symbolizing friendship and gratitude, is a remarkable testimony to the historic bonds connecting France and the United States.

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The Friendship Train In the summer of 1947, still reeling from the destruction caused by World War II, Europe endured one of the worst droughts in its history. That fall, harvests were insufficient to meet the needs of the European people, and Western Europeans found themselves desperately in need of food aid. Italy and France were particularly affected. A US State Department report issued in September 1947 estimated that the two countries would need to import more than four million tons of grain over the winter to properly feed their populations.

The US government quickly moved to address these needs. Immediate shipments of aid were sent to France and Italy, and a more comprehensive economic solution for rebuilding Europe, which came to be known as the Marshall Plan, was drawn up and would be deployed in 1948. However, this aid was greeted with suspicion by some Europeans, who believed that the supplies were a DECEMBER 2023/JANUARY 2024

PHOTO: KEYSTONE PRESS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

tool of American foreign policy. This skeptical attitude was observed with alarm by journalist Andrew Russell “Drew” Pearson during his visits to Europe. It occurred to Pearson that gifts of food directly from the American people rather than the government might help dispel this sense of mistrust. Toward this end, he began promoting the idea of a special charitable project to provide food aid.

Pearson outlined a plan for a private charitable response to European hunger in a nationally syndicated newspaper column published on October 11, 1947. In the column, he proposed “running a ‘Friendship Train’ straight across the United States, straight through the heart of America, collecting food as it goes, inspiring the housewives and farmers The elks magazine

PHOTO: PJF MILITARY COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

In his October 11, 1947, column, nationally syndicated radio, television, and print journalist Drew Pearson, shown here in 1952, proposed sending a train full of supplies to Europe.

of the nation to spare a bag of flour or a bushel of wheat and bring it down to the Friendship Train as their contribution toward friendship with the people of Europe.”

Pearson recruited Harry Warner, president of Warner Brothers studio, to serve as chairman of an organizing committee. He also received commitments from the heads of major railroad companies, labor unions, and civic organizations to provide free transportation, skilled volunteer labor, and expert assistance in gathering donations. Pearson even made the first contribution to the project, donating $10,000 of his own money (about $130,000 in today’s dollars). The Friendship Train was scheduled to run on November 7, beginning in Los Angeles, traveling northeast to Chicago, winding its way eastward through the Midwest, and eventually reaching New York City.

Pearson hoped it would collect a total of eighty train cars full of relief supplies by the time it arrived in New York.

The American people’s response to the Friendship Train was more generous than Pearson had dared hope. People throughout the country organized donation drives and arranged for rail cars full of wheat, corn, sugar, and other basic foodstuffs, as well as medicine and clothing, to be delivered to stops along the train’s route. Schools, city governments, individual citizens, and civic organizations joined the effort—for example, Elks lodges from Cassia and Minidoka counties in Idaho contributed a full carload of wheat, and the Lawrence, Kansas, Lodge donated $1,500 worth of wheat. To collect as many supplies as possible, the

Shown here is a type C2-S-B1 cargo ship similar to the American Leader, a type C2-S-B1 that was rechristened the Friend Ship before carrying the first shipment of supplies from the Friendship Train to Europe in 1947.

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tened the Friend Ship for the voyage. It departed Philadelphia on November 30, picked up additional supplies in New York, and arrived at the port of Le Havre in France on December 18. Another ship reached Naples, Italy, on December 28, and the rest of the supplies were delivered to Europe by early January.

In France, the supplies were distributed with the help of American Aid to France, a charity devoted to postwar relief, as well as the French government and several other charitable organizations. In Italy, the Friendship Train project’s organizers worked with international organizations and the Italian government to distribute the food.

In both countries, the supplies were distributed primarily to children, elderly people, and other people at risk from hunger. Although most of the supplies were distributed in France and Italy, people in several other European countries also received supplies from the Friendship Train.

Almost as important as the food, medicine, and clothing that were collected and distributed was the spirit with which these items were given. Newsreel footage of the Friendship Train donations was widely distributed, and people in France and Italy were deeply moved by images of ordinary Americans lining up at train depots to give boxes and bags to be shipped overseas. Each box and bag of food,

PHOTO: MDART/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

train was split into three separate trains after it reached Chicago, allowing it to pick up donations along multiple routes. By the time the three trains arrived in New York on November 18, they were pulling a total of more than 240 cars full of food, medicine, and clothing.

Even after the primary train arrived in New York, the movement created by the Friendship Train continued to gather steam. Another train was sent across the country, collecting donations from states that had been bypassed on the initial routes. This train started in New Mexico and ran across Texas and several southeastern states.

When it arrived in Philadelphia on November 29, it was pulling two hundred railroad cars full of supplies. Similar efforts took place in other states, and donations continued to arrive in both Philadelphia and New York. In the end, people from all forty-eight existing US states, as well as the territory of Hawaii and the District of Columbia, donated a total of about seven hundred railroad cars full of supplies, worth a total of $40 million (about $525 million in today’s dollars).

To transport the supplies to Europe, US shipping companies donated the use of four large cargo ships. The first of these vessels, the American Leader, which belonged to the United States Lines shipping company, was rechris-

These gilded bronze statues located near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, are called Sacrifice (front) and Valor (rear). Together they are known as The Arts of War, and they are among four statues created in Italy and given to the United States as an expression of gratitude for the Friendship Train and the role the United States played in World War II.

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December 2023/January 2024

FORTY-AND-EIGHT BOXCARS WERE CHOSEN to carry the Merci Train gifts from France to the United States because these railroad cars were used to transport Allied military personnel to the front lines of France during World War I, and many US veterans of World War I who fought in France were very familiar with them. First used in 1870, forty-and-eight boxcars measured approximately twenty-nine feet long by nine feet across by twelve feet tall. They weighed about eight tons and could carry twenty tons of cargo, but the name “forty-and-eight” was derived from the fact that they could transport either forty men or eight horses at one time.

The forty-and-eight railroad cars that constituted the Merci Train are believed to have been built in 1885. Before they were sent to the United States, the boxcars were carefully restored and covered with symbolic decorative elements, such as forty shields representing the forty provinces of France. Upon each side of each car were also placed three other decorations, including the Great Seal of the United States, a logo representing the Merci Train, and a stripe of red, white, and blue. Written in the white part of the stripe was the name of the train in French and English—Train de la Reconnaissance Française on one side of the car and Gratitude Train on the other. clothing, or medicine that arrived in Europe came with a label indicating that it had been given out of love by an ordinary American in hopes that Europe could soon recover.

The Merci Train The Friendship Train and other support from the United States proved to be so well received in France and Italy that citizens of those countries sought to express their thanks to the American people. The Italian government expressed the gratitude of its people, both for the Friendship Train and the role the United States played in the removal of Mussolini’s Italian Fascist dictatorship, by sending four monumental, gilded bronze equestrian statues known as The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace to the United States. The people of France also sought a way to express their gratitude. There were many ideas floating about, but it was a suggestion that mirrored the idea of the Friendship Train that would embody the nation’s expression of thanks to the American people.

Early in 1948, a French railroad employee and war veteran named André Picard suggested that a vintage railroad The elks magazine

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PHOTO: DIANNE LEETH/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO.

FORTY-AND-EIGHT BOXCARS

car could be filled with gifts of appreciation and sent to the United States. After his idea was publicized, it generated an enthusiastic response that led to the expansion of his plan. Instead of a single train car filled with gifts, the new plan called for a full train of forty-nine cars—one car full of gifts for each of the forty-eight US states, plus another car containing gifts to be divided between the District of Columbia and the territory of Hawaii.

The full name for this endeavor was the Train de la Reconnaissance Française au Peuple Américain, which can be translated as “the Train of French Gratitude for the American People.” The translated name was sometimes shortened to the Gratitude Train, but over time the project came to be more commonly known as the Merci Train. This train was made up of restored nineteenth-century railroad cars decorated with symbols representing France and French gratitude to the United States. The cars, which were known as forty-and-eight cars because they were each used to transport either forty men or eight horses during wartime, had a unique connection to the US military. They had been used to transport US troops to the front during World War I, and the experience of riding in the cars had inspired the French name of an American military honors society. Called La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux, which in English means "the Society of Forty Men and Eight Horses," the organization was also known more succinctly as the Forty and Eight.

Throughout the second half of 1948, cars from the train traveled across France, picking up gifts from the French people. Some of the gifts were as simple as lace handkerchiefs, children’s drawings, or toys; others were as large and elaborate as a replica of an ancient Greek statue.

Many of the gifts reflected local industries— for example, dressmakers in Lyons donated forty-nine silk wedding dresses to the train, the This statue, given to the people of Idaho as part city of Caen proof the Merci Train’s gifts, is a copy of the Winged vided forty-nine Victory of Samothrace, an ancient Greek statue bronze school on display in the Louvre museum in France. bells, and the

PHOTO: HERB QUICK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

This photo showing the Merci Train boxcar on display at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, details several of the forty coats of arms that adorned each boxcar and represented the forty regions of France.

French carmaker Renault donated several miniature toy Among the ceremony participants were André Picard, the cars. Also among the gifts were military medals, war sou- French originator of the idea of the Merci Train, and Drew Pearson, the driving force bevenirs such as captured German infantry hind the Friendship Train. helmets, and historical artifacts such as After the ceremony in New the bugle that was used to sound the end York, the remaining fortyof World War I. eight cars were sent across Most of the gifts that filled the Merci the country by rail. Because Train came from private French citizens, US railroads used a different but leading government figures and the gauge than French railroads— French government also contributed. meaning that the distance The president of France, Vincent Auriol, between rails was different in donated forty-nine elegant vases, one for the US than in France—the each railroad car, from his personal colcars could not run directly lection. To represent the French countryon US tracks. Instead, each side, the French Ministry of Agriculture car was placed on a flatbed provided trees and shrubs to be sent in railroad car to be transported each car. In the end, a total of fifty-two to its destination. Forty-seven thousand gifts with a combined weight of of the forty-eight remaining more than 250 tons was packed into the railroad cars were delivered cars and transported across the Atlantic to the state capitals of the by the French freighter Magellan. states for which they were The ship and its cargo arrived in New This ceramic vase, which is in the collection of the intended. The forty-eighth was York on February 2, 1949. The railroad Wyoming State Museum, was one of the many fine transported to Washington, car destined for New York was unloaded, art objects sent as gifts to the American people in DC, where the boxcar and its placed on a truck, and paraded to New the Merci Train. contents were displayed before York City Hall, where its arrival was PHOTO: WYOMING STATE MUSEUM the car and some of the gifts greeted by a crowd of two hundred thousand people and marked by a formal welcoming ceremony. were moved to the West Coast and then shipped to Hawaii.

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December 2023/January 2024

PHOTO: TANGO IMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO.

Vice President Alben Barkley gave a speech welcoming the Merci Train to Washington, DC, in February 1949. Standing to his right is journalist Drew Pearson, who organized the Friendship Train.

LA SOCIÉTÉ DES QUARANTE HOMMES ET HUIT CHEVAUX In 1949, when the Merci Train arrived in the United States, many of its forty-and-eight railcars were placed in the care of an American military honors society known as La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux, also known as the Forty and Eight. The society was founded as a part of the American Legion in 1920 by US armed forces veterans who had served in World War I. It took its name from the veterans’ shared experience of long rides in cramped forty-and-eight railcars during the war. The Forty and Eight became an independent organization in 1959, and in 1965, its members formed the National Box Car Association to help support the preservation of the forty-andeight cars that were in their care. As of the end of 2022, the Forty and Eight had a total of more than seventeen thousand members in local chapters in all fifty US states and France.

As the Merci Train railroad cars arrived in each state, they were greeted enthusiastically by members of the public and local dignitaries. Most states displayed the cars and the gifts they contained for a brief period and The elks magazine

then found appropriate homes for the gifts. The trees and bushes donated by the French Ministry of Agriculture were typically planted in public places. The wedding dresses from Lyons were given to young brides—often women who were marrying war veterans. Religious artwork was given to local churches, and other art and gifts were distributed to regional museums, schools, and community organizations.

As for the decorated vintage boxcars themselves, most were put into the care of the Forty and Eight military honors society for preservation. Over the more than seventy years since the railroad cars were delivered, various mishaps claimed some of the cars—three are known to have been destroyed, two are missing and presumed destroyed, and the whereabouts of the car sent to Colorado are unknown—but forty-three of them remain and have been carefully restored and preserved. They can be found in museums, parks, and other public areas in the states to which they were sent. These simple and elegantly decorated railroad cars, as well as displays of some of their contents in regional museums throughout the country, serve as a reminder of a remarkable moment when the people of two nations opened their hearts to each other and engaged in a singular exchange of gifts. ■

Click here to learn more about the forty-three surviving Merci Train railroad cars, including where to find them.

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Merci Boxcar 75th Anniversary Special Edition Program Book Ad Contest The Locale who submits the most value ads will receive a $200 donation for their Nurses Training Program.

The Voyageur Militaire who submits the most in value of business ads will receive a $100 gift card.

Ad prices are listed below – ask and see how much you can get!

Gratitude Train / Texas Merci Boxcar 75th Anniversary Program Book Ads A SPECIAL SECTION OF THE PROGRAM BOOK WILL BE DEDICATED TO THESE SUPPORTERS SILVER SUPPORTER: $50 GOLD SUPPORTER: $100 PLATINUM SUPPORTER: $250 DOUBLE PLATINUM SUPPORTER: $500 PLEASE SEND DONOR INFORMATION to: davidknutson@sbcglobal.net All program ads must be received by March 1, 2024 SEND PROGRAM ADS AND PAYMENT TO: David Knutson 932 Medina Way Leander, TX 78641 (Make Checks Payable to Voiture 175)

ALL DONORS WILL GET A SOUVENIR COPY OF THE PROGRAM BOOK AND CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION

AGENDA 75

TH

ANNIVERSARY OF THE MERCI BOXCAR AND 2024 SPRING CHEMINOT MARCH 21-22-23-24, 2024

ALL ROOMS AND EVENTS ARE NON-SMOKING

THURSDAY 6:00 PM – 10:00 pm

March 21st Early Bird Roll Call American Legion Knebel Post 83

FRIDAY 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM

March 22nd Registration Open (Guadalupe / Barton Creek)

8:00 AM to 11:00 AM

Hospitality Room Open (Guadalupe / Barton Creek)

11:00 AM

Shuttle departs for Camp Mabry and Capitol Visitor Center Events

12:00 PM

75th Anniversary Ceremony at Camp Mabry

1:15 PM

Shuttle departs for Capitol Visitor Center

2:00 PM

Grand Opening of Boxcar Artifact Exhibit

4:00 PM

Shuttle departs Capitol Visitor Center

4:45 PM

Estimated arrival back at hotel

6:00 PM

Social Hour (Ladybird Lake Ballroom)

7:00 PM

Friday Night Dinner at the Hotel (Ladybird Lake Ballroom)

9:30 PM to 11:00 PM

Hospitality Room Open (Guadalupe / Barton Creek)

AGENDA 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MERCI BOXCAR AND 2024 SPRING CHEMINOT MARCH 21-22-23-24, 2024 ALL ROOMS AND EVENTS ARE NON-SMOKING

SATURDAY

March 23rd

8 AM to 11 AM

Registration Open

8 AM to PM

Hospitality Room Open (Guadalupe / Barton Creek)

9 AM to 11 AM

Grand Committee Meetings Finance Committee Nurses Training Committee Time and Place Committee Others as Deemed Necessary (Executive Learning Center)

1:00 PM Grand Cheminot (Executive Learning Center) AFTER CHEMINOT HOSPITALITY ROOM REOPENS UNTIL 5:30 PM 6 PM to 7 PM

Social Hour (Knebel Post 83)

7 PM to 8:30 PM

Dinner (Knebel Post 83)

(DRESS FOR DINNER IS BUSINESS CAUSAL WITH CHAPEAU) HOSPITALITY ROOM REOPENS AFTER DINNER / ABOUT 9:30 PM

SUNDAY 9:00 AM

March 24th Merci Box Car Pilgrimage at Camp Mabry Memorial Service Grand Aumonier Photo at Boxcar Memorial Over

2024 SPRING CHEMINOT AND 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MERCI BOXCAR

MARCH 21-24, 2024

WYNDHAM GARDEN AUSTIN 3401 South Interstate 35, Austin, TX Make Reservations using the link below: https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham-garden/austin-texas/wyndham-garden-austin/roomsrates?&checkInDate=03/21/2024&checkOutDate=03/21/2024&groupCode=032124GRA

or call 737-304-0630 (Advise you are with the Forty and Eight Convention) (Group Block Code 032124GRA)

GROUP RATE: $115 per night + tax Includes Free Breakfast and is Pet Friendly

RESERVATION DEADLINE: Mar 1, 2024

75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MERCI BOXCAR AND 2024 SPRING CHEMINOT MARCH 21-22-23-24, 2024 REGISTRATION FORM Please fill in the following information to register for Spring Cheminot.

Name: _____________________________________________________________ Title or Highest Office held: ________________Voiture or Cabane #: ________ Name: _____________________________________________________________ Title or Highest Office held: ________________Voiture or Cabane #: ________ Select number of people for registration

Number Registration:

________

X

$25.00 = $_____

Then select Friday Dinner, Saturday Dinner or Both Friday and Saturday

Friday Dinner Only: Saturday Dinner Only:

________ ________

X X

$15.00 = $_____ $15.00 = $_____

Or Both Fri & Sat Dinner: ________

X

$25.00 = $_____

Submit total for Registration and Dinner(s)

Booster $3 per name or $5 per couple:

$_____

Total for Registration, Dinner & Booster

$__________

Advance registration is $25 per person plus the dinner choice Advance registration must be received by March 1, 2024.

Late Registration fee is $30 per person plus the dinner choice

SEND REGISTRATION AND PROGRAM ADS TO: David Knutson 932 Medina Way Leander, TX 78641 (Make Checks Payable to Voiture 175)

Spring Cheminot Program Book Ads Full page Ad - $30 Half page Ad - $20 Business Card - $10 In addition to a hard copy, please send ads via E-mail to: davidknutson@sbcglobal.net All program ads must be received by March 1, 2024 SEND REGISTRATION AND PROGRAM ADS TO: David Knutson 932 Medina Way Leander, TX 78641 (Make Checks Payable to Voiture 175) This is for the Spring Cheminot Ad Book only.

The 75th Anniversary of the Merci Boxcar Program Ad Will be a separate special edition program book.

All are welcome to submit ads for both program books.

SPRING CHEMINOT 2024 MERCI BOXCAR 75TH ANNIVERSARY February 21-24, 2024 Austin, Texas Booster Sheet $1.00 per name 1

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