The Harvester World: Volume 9, number 10, October 1918

              Parke Randall's Log

Parke Randall's unusual experiences during three and a half years with the Germans on German occupied territory has already been described in American newspapers. We thought our readers might enjoy a more inti¬ mate interview with Mr. Randall than would be possible to give the outside world.
Parke Randall was an old Keystone man and was superintendent of experiments at Rock Falls until igi2. In that year he left to go to the IH C plant at Croix, France, in the same capacity. Before the war he traveled throughout France and Belgium, following machines at work in the field and making tests. That is the way the Company has worked things out to meet the real needs of Europe — by studying the tnachines actually at work. Vou will be interested to know that the machines made at the Croix plant were Deering and McCormick mowers, rakes, tedders, spring-tooth harrows, and binder twine.— The Editor.

Lille, the Germans were very friendly to Americans. The statement tliat ours was an American plant was enough to cause them to leave the property undisturbed. They seemed to feel friendly toward us and the situ¬ ation   was  easily   controlled   until the  first   week in December.    When Mr. Ericsson went away, I was left in charge of the plant and finally the only other IHC man left with me was Jas. A. Brown, a colored employe, who had been furnace man in tlie malleable foundry. Brown volunteered to stay and stay he did until the end. It was in the first week in December when we began seriously to be disturbed by requisitioning parties com¬ ing and demanding materials or other equipment of the plant.    Through the good offices of the American consul I secured papers from the highest military authority  stating that   our   plant  was American property and prohibiting all requisitioning.    These papers held off all vandalism   until  in   March.     How after tliat time requests, requisitions and demands  became   more  frequent  and numerous and how the German soldiery on one pretext and another carried away practically everything belonging to the plant, is a story in itself and is being told I understand by means of   one of my reports in the next issue of The  Har¬ vester  World.     This is   more of  a personal account of the  adventures of an  IHC   man and his assistant in a territory entirely surrounded and occu¬ pied by Germans.
When, on the 14th of February, 1917, we heard America had broken off diplo¬ matic relations with Germany, I made application to the authorities to leave. We received a written refusal the next day—the quickest action I ever had from the German authorities. We waited until in September when we were sum¬ moned before the German authorities and questioned at great length.     It was then that we learned that the Harvester Company through the state department was making efforts to get us out of German occupied terri¬ tory.    We were summoned numerous times to answer questions but never any definite statement as to when we could leave or whether we ever could leave or not. Our services there were no longer of any special value to the Company, all of the property which was movable having already been carried off.   Finally, on Christmas day,   1917,   we   were   summoned   before   the   august tribunals and told that we could leave.    We were not only told we could leave, we were told we must leave,
WAS at the factory in Croix, France, on that eventful day when war was declared, August 1, 1914. Croix, it should be remembered, is really a suburb of Lille, being situated about five miles from that city.
I saw the French soldiers leave for their regiments. There was no swagger or wild enthusiasm as they went away but as these men marched off to face the German army, which for years had been described as the most formidable the world had ever seen, they went with fortitude and brave hearts. Most of our employes went out on the first call. Our plant was harder hit than the average because ours was a young man's con¬ cern. We had not been going for years and did not have the customary residue of old emploj'es. Our factory was left practically unmanned from the first.
On the 24th of August, fearful because of persistent rumors that the Germans were approaching on all sides, I led a party of twenty-three men, women and children to Paris. The party was com¬ posed of employes — all Americans ex¬ cepting two who were Canadians — and their families. Mr. and Mrs. Ericsson (Frank A. Ericsson was manager of the plant) remained in Lille. The Germans entered the city the next day.
We stayed a week in Paris and on September 1st, rumors prevailing that Paris might be encircled, our whole party went to Havre and thence across the channel to England, where it soon be¬ came known that all was quiet in Croix, and on October 1st about half the party returned.
There was no established battle line in the northern part of France at that time, only patrol fighting in various directions. It was fairly quiet in Lille when we landed with the exception of small patrol fights outside of the town all around. These activities became stronger every day and the fighting got hotter and hotter until Lille was surrounded by the Germans, bombarded, taken and entered on the 13th of October. At that time it was a race between the English and the Germans for the channel ports and contiguous territory.
On the 13th of November, Mr. and Mrs. Ericsson left, Mrs. Ericsson being in very poor health. It was Mr. Ericsson's plan to return as soon as he had got his wife to a place of safety and quiet. The Germans never permitted him to return. For the first month or so after the occupation of 
Parke Randall, an American citizen, voluntarily remained at the Croix plant after the surrounding territory had been occupied by the Ger¬ mans, for the purpose of pro¬ tecting the plant and the property there as much as possible. He showed great courage and diligence in his difficult task and is deserving of the highest praise.