One of Our Boys
A California Youth of Heroic Soul Who Gave His Life to England
We are constantly hearing of the hundreds of Americans who laid down their lives under the French colors. It was part of the debt we owed France. England, too, when she joined in the war for liberty, found many Americans hastening to her aid, and among the lives that were taken under her flag in the “great venture” was that of Harry Butters, a young Californian whose death in France called forth nation-wide eulogies in Great Britain.
Young Butters, after a preliminary education at San Francisco, went to England and entered Beaumont College at Windsor. There amid England’s rural charms and the spell of England’s old traditions, he learned to love the country which sheltered him.
At the outbreak of the war, Butters went back to America. He could not stay, however. There was a call to rise and to go. He went back to England and enlisted. It was as an officer of the British Army that he died.
The London Observer voices England’s praise and love of the American:
“This American boy—and what a straight, upstanding pattern of youth and strength he was—owed us no duty and he gave us all. He gave it not impulsively nor in adventurous recklessness, but with a settled enthusiasm belonging to the ‘depth and not the tumult of the soul.’ How much he gave is worth considering. His personal endowments and opportunities were such that when he made up his mind to quit everything in his bright California and to come into the war, his choice was heroic in the fullest sense of that word.
“When he went back to America after leaving college, he was a young man of mark, framed to excel both in sport and affairs. He was very tall, supple, active, frank, and comely of face, as gay as he was good-looking. You saw by a glance at his hands that he had a born instinct for management and technique. He had been a good deal at sea. He knew all about horses and motor-cars. He was a crack shot and a fine polo-player. His business ability was shown as soon as he took over the management of his father’s estates. With this practical talent that could turn itself to anything he had other qualities. One remembers what a delightful, level, measuring glance he used to give suddenly from under his brows when he had finished rolling a cigarette and went on with his keen questioning about men and things. To talk with him was to receive a new and promising revelation of the mind of young America. Like so many of our own young soldiers in their attitude toward politics, he was not content with either of the old parties in the United States. He thought that his own generation, if it was earnest enough, might make a better hand both of social problems and world-relations. He hoped to play his part. Although he always thought of himself in a fine spirit as “an American citizen,” he wanted the United States to take a full share in the wider life of the world, and especially to work as far as possible for common ideals with the whole English-speaking race.