OLD NEWS: Scouting gives lad war fever

This ad from the Feb. 19, 1915, Arkansas Democrat touts a Boy Scout recruitment film playing in Little Rock.
This ad from the Feb. 19, 1915, Arkansas Democrat touts a Boy Scout recruitment film playing in Little Rock.

Go looking for history in 100-year-old newspapers and pretty soon you may be tempted to read between the lines. There's nothing shameful about wanting to. Humans are built for empathy.

But maybe there's truth between those lines, maybe not.

It's the tiny items that mention the unimportant people that are most likely to make us imagine we recognize the dead.

Consider Dwight Ledbetter (1902-1924). His name pops up among reports of sick soldiers in the Arkansas Gazette and Arkansas Democrat in early January 1918. Here is the Gazette of Jan. 6, 1918:

Young Ledbetter Ill

Conway, Jan. 5 -- Circuit Clerk A.M. Ledbetter yesterday received a telegram from naval authorities at Charleston, S.C., saying that his son, Dwight Ledbetter, is ill with meningitis at the naval hospital in Charleston, and that he desired his parents to come to him. They left last night for Charleston.

Young Ledbetter, who is only 15 years old, after several failures to gain admission, ran away from home several weeks ago and finally enlisted in the navy at Great Lakes, Ill. He was recently transferred to Charleston.

Fifteen. Better informed readers will correct me quickly if I have this wrong, but as I read the National Defense Act of June 3, 1916 (bit.ly/2E7XLV2), Dwight either had his family's consent to enlist or else lied about having a family.

Three days after he was reported ill, the paper reported the "plucky lad" was recovering.

Dwight's father Amon's public career is well documented in the archives, which could explain why they contain other mentions of Dwight. For starters, he was a Boy Scout during formative years for the Boy Scouts of America in Arkansas.

On June 19, 1916, Dwight was one of 18, 19 or 20 Boy Scouts of Conway (the number count varies) the Democrat reported had arrived in Hot Springs, having finished the first 53-mile leg of a three-week hike. They camped on the courthouse grounds. With their Scoutmaster, H.E. Steele, and Hot Springs Scoutmaster Walter Raleigh, they had called on Gus Strauss of the Business Men's League.

They were authorized to take the boys to the alligator farm, the ostrich farm and other places this morning, and to entertain them at dinner as guests of the league.

They traveled with a team and wagon to carry their supplies, but did not ride on the wagon. Steele noted that in the mountain country around the Maumelle River there was "not even a trail," and the lads did "some pioneering work" to get the team through.

This was summer and it was hot, and Lake Maumelle did not exist. We can imagine those kids worked to find water.

Such outings were popular in the first decade of Scouting here. From hundreds of reports the Gazette and especially the Democrat published promoting Scouting from 1911 on, we know the organization was admired as excellent paramilitary training -- except among Socialists, who, the Democrat reported, were bitterly opposed.

But back to Dwight. On June 23, the Gazette reported that 19 members of Conway's Troop No. 1 had hiked 240 miles and were overnighting at Little Rock. After two days at Hot Springs, they had visited the bauxite and pottery plants at Benton. On their way to Little Rock, they had encountered state Capitol custodian Renton Tunnah motoring along, and he invited them for a tour. He let them take "shower baths" in the Capitol lavoratories.

Next they planned to stop at Fort Logan H. Roots north of the Arkansas River to "witness some of the preparations being made at the mobilization camp by 'sure nuff' soldiers."

Steele said:

"There were a few blisters and several of the boys had stomach trouble from drinking too much sofe [sic] drinks when they got to towns where they could buy it, but aside from that, they are coming through in fine condition. The youngest boy is 13 and the oldest 17 years of age."

One month later in 1916:

BOY MISSING -- Dwight Ledbetter of Conway, son of the circuit clerk of Faulkner county, ran away from home about 10 o'clock yesterday morning and has not been heard of since, according to information received last night by the police department. The boy wore a gray cap, a gray suit and carried a black suitcase.

From later items we know he tried to join the Navy and was rebuffed. His brother, Arvor, made the Gazette in September 1916, having been injured when a tier of seats gave way during a Labor Day boxing match in Colorado Springs, Colo. But Dwight didn't show up again until Aug. 19, 1917:

Family Bible Keeps Youth Out of Navy

Great Lakes, Ill. -- Fourteen-year-old Dwight Ledbetter ... promises to be a hard lad to keep satisfied for the next few years. And it's all because the Ledbetter family Bible shows he was born 14 years ago, instead of 18, as the boy would have it.

Dwight spent a day at Great Lakes Naval Training Station this week. He enjoyed himself very much, but throughout the day his pleasure was marred just a little by the fact Uncle Sam's naval officers refused to make a Jackie of him.

The article said Dwight had tried to enlist at Conway as soon as war was declared in April, and failing there had failed again at Little Rock.

Now, Dwight is a well-trained Boy Scout and persistence is spelled with a capital "P" in his program. So he was not long in deciding to get at the head of things. Within a short time after several of his friends had been received at the Great Lakes station, Dwight, having gotten to Chicago somehow or other, was knocking at the gates.

"I'll be back," he called as the train on which he was sent home left the Great Lakes, "and next time you'll take me."

Which it appears they did.

After surviving meningitis, Dwight survived the war as a seaman second class (it's carved on his tombstone). We know he attended college in Milwaukee because on Feb. 27, 1920, The Post Crescent reported a patrolman had stopped the 17-year-old government engineering student. He had a gun. Asked what he was up to he said, "Potting rabbits on Grand Ave." He was pronounced sane and said he was "just kidding" the police.

The last news clip I have about Dwight is from The Southern Standard of Arkadelphia, dated Feb. 14, 1924:

Conway -- Dwight Ledbetter, aged 21, son of Mr. and Mrs. A.M. Ledbetter of this city, was almost instantly killed here when he picked up a fallen electric wire charged with 6,600 volts. The young man fell to the ground unconscious the instant he touched the wire and died within five minutes.

Oh, rash and impetuous youth.

Dwight, his father and other family members are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery at Conway.

Email:

[email protected]

photo

Why the May 15, 1911, Arkansas Democrat printed this drawing of the metal Boy Scout pin upside-down is unknown. The dangling knot reminded the boy to do a good deed.

ActiveStyle on 02/05/2018

Upcoming Events