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Monday, January 14, 2019
Page #15
Texas History Minute The guns of the Great War had finally fallen silent on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, but the shape of Dr. Ken the peace was Bridges still in question. Texans had fought bravely during World War I, including leading officers and Medal of Honor recipients on the blood-stained fields of Europe. With the war at a close, Texans would again play a major role, this time in crafting the peace. Two noted Texas figures, Edward House and Sidney Mezes, would serve on the peace delegation in France to craft the Treaty of Versailles that formally ended the war now one hundred years ago.
September 1917, House and Mezes directed a group of 150 scholars to study the possible conditions for postwar peace and negotiations, a group known simply as “The Inquiry.” The group would meet periodically until early 1919 at the offices of the American Geographic Society and the New York Public Library. Wilson chose economists, law professors, and historians – experts in international trade, military affairs, colonial history, the Middle East, West Asia, and Europe -- to pinpoint the historic developments of the warring states and provide the necessary information needed to construct a lasting peace.
House had represented America at the Inter-Allied War Council in Paris in late 1917. With Wilson’s Edward M. House, affectionately support, House pushed for a called “colonel” though he had no unified statement that the Allies military experience, came from a were not fighting for reparations wealthy Texas family. He was born or revenge but was rebuffed. In in 1858. His father was a banker January 1918, House helped and sugar baron from Houston. The Wilson compose what became the family spent many days at their Fourteen Points, which he beach home in Galveston and took unveiled to the nation in a speech extended vacations to Europe. later that month. The Fourteen House became a political power Points became a controversial broker and helped direct the symbol of Wilson’s global peace. gubernatorial campaign of Jim The document called for selfHogg in 1892, for which the determination for the conquered grateful Hogg made House an peoples of the Central Powers the honorary lieutenant colonel in the Allies were fighting, lower state militia. In Wilson’s 1912 international tariffs, global campaign for the presidency, House reductions of armaments, an became a trusted advisor and close independent Poland, break-up of friend. the colonial system, the creation of the League of Nations, and Sidney Edward Mezes, born in freedom of the seas for all California in 1863, was the son of nations. immigrants, with a mother from Italy and a father from Spain. He After the November 1918 had learned about European history armistice, the Allies chose the old and culture firsthand from his French royal palace of Versailles, family and extensive travel in just outside Paris, to conduct the Europe as a young man. He held a negotiations. Wilson chose 21 doctorate from Harvard. Mezes members of this group to came to Austin to teach philosophy accompany him to Paris in at the University of Texas in 1894. January 1919 to negotiate the A respected figure on campus, from terms of the peace, including 1908 until 1914, Mezes served as Mezes and House. Mezes would president of the university, helping play a quieter role in Paris, but his the young university to grow in power of analysis was a great aid enrollments and academic to Wilson. House once again reputation. Mezes already knew became one of Wilson’s most House well – he had married important point men in relaying House’s sister-in-law in 1896. ideas and proposals between the different delegations. More than Almost from the beginning of 110,000 Americans died during World War I in 1914, President the war, and Mezes and House Woodrow Wilson sought to broker agreed with Wilson that building a peace in Europe. House had a new spirit of cooperation among traveled from government to the world’s nations was their best government to attempt to open chance to avoid another such peace talks. And almost up until war. In spite of their initial the point the United States entered optimism, however, their efforts the war in 1917, Wilson kept trying would fall apart. to end the fighting. When war broke out, Wilson set up a special (continued next week)... commission to help shape the peace at the end. Dr. Bridges is a Texas native, writer, and history professor. He By the time that war broke out, can be reached at Mezes was serving as president of drkenbridges@gmail.com. the City College of New York. In
Feed My Sheep report Feed My Sheep, the local food pantry in Howe announced that they were able to feed 120 families in December 2018. Of that total, 155 individuals were childen age 17 or under. Adults aged 15-59 checked in at 145, while 52 seniors aged 60 or over received meals. The North Texas Food Bank attributed for over 90 percent of the food distributed.
For the year, the organization distributed 96,922 pounds of food. Case totals were 907 covering 265 households which means many were repeat clients on a monthly basis. In 2018, they fed 333 children, 382 adults, and 122 seniors. The children figures were up significantly from 2017 (233).
