Posted on April 14, 2022 at 2:52 PM by Bill Sowers
At the Front
War in Europe Seen Through the Eyes of Henry J. Allen
In January, 1918, Kansas journalist Henry J. Allen gave a speech before the Annual Meeting of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture on his experiences in France where he had been serving as head of communications for the American Red Cross. World War I was raging in Europe and Allen gave a detailed description of the horrors of war around him to the attendees at the convention. He later ran successfully for governor of Kansas in 1918 and served in that office from 1919 to 1923.
Allen held no punches in his speech. He reported the ugliness of the war in detail. A transcription appeared in the March 1918 Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture and is available in the State Library of Kansas' KGI Online Library here:
The March 1918 Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture has other war related articles, primarily on the response of the Kansas farmer to World War I. You can virtually thumb through this issue here:
March 1918 Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture