USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 83
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The main business of the Fresno City High School with its state recog- nized and armed battalion of cadets was to help teach how to win this war. A total of 345 students and alumni represented the school in the service, seventy-one having gone from the school this year of 1918. The school contributed about $120,000 to the various phases of war work in 1918- more than $90,000 to the second Liberty loan, $24,000 to the third and $4.500 to War Savings Stamps and Red Cross work. The spirit of war had infused every department of school work; the details are too many to particularize ; not a department or class in high or junior college but has done something.
April 30, 1918, War Savings Stamps sales amounted to $213,871.74, plac- ing Fresno third in the list of cities of the state for total subscribed.
All Liberty loans were oversubscribed. City quota on No. 1 was $1.125,- 000; subscribed $1,402,950. Quota on No. 2 was $2,500.000; subscribed $2,980,000. Quota on No. 3 was $1,865,000 and over the top went Fresno April 20 rolling up a total of $1,875,000. In the Red Cross drive of 1917 the Fresno Chapter, which does not include Selma or Coalinga, raised $89,- 000. The Red Cross has 8,000 members in Fresno city and 32,000 in the chapter district. Speaking in round figures, Fresno raised $50.000 for the Y. M. C. A. war fund, $25,000 for Armenian relief, $13,000 for the Salvation Army Hut fund, $12,000 for the Y. W. C. A. war fund, $10,000 for the Bel- gian relief, $6,000 for the Knights of Columbus war fund. $3,250 for Smile- age books, $1,500 for athletic outfits for soldiers, $1,100 for the mess fund of the machine gun corps, $275 for the mess fund of Companies C and K, has sent .Christmas and Raisin Day packages by the ton to the soldier boys besides tons of clothing and shoes to Belgian sufferers. It has turned a deaf ear to no appeal on account of this war.
The showing on the third Liberty loan was a remarkable one. It was 100 per cent. all over-100 per cent. for the county as a whole and 100 per cent. for every community moreover. All towns in the county were honor towns and all have flags ; some stars in addition; Del Rey three stars and each star represented 100 per cent., and all this accomplished in six work- ing days. Fresno went $10,000 over the quota and the county $494.400- proof again of the great resources and wealth of this county. Fresno's Honor Flag was raised from the courthouse pole on Raisin Day of 1918 as part of
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the day's exercises. The record is of interest how the towns ranked in "going over the top," listing them in the order of subscriptions :
Town
Subscription
Honor Reward
Fresno County
$3,044,400
Quota $2,550,000
Flag
Fresno City
1,875,000
1,865,000
Flag
Coalinga
237,500
117,100
Star
Selma
208,800
151,250
Flag
Reedley
130,000
100,600
Flag
Kingsburg
119,000
83,000
Flag
Sanger
110,500
77,050
Flag
Clovis
87,900
41,000
Star
Fowler
77.350
52,000
Flag
Riverdale
70,650
22,750
2 Stars
Parlier
64,200
27,750
Star
Kerman
36,500
16,150
Star
Del Rey
36,000
9,000
3 Stars
Laton
13,200
13,000
Flag
Kerman was reported to be the first town in the state to go over the top. During the third Liberty loan drive, five teams of city letter carriers sold in two weeks $49,750 of war thrift stamps.
November 4, 1917, saw depart for Camp Lewis at American Lake, Wash., Fresno's fifth contingent and the last lot of men under the first draft army call. In the number were 172 from Fresno and ten from other counties and cities. Fresno had sent quota as follows: District 1, 380; District 2, 351: Fresno City, 152-total 883. To secure these there had to be examined : District 1, 2,460; District 2, 2.300; Fresno City, 854-total 5.614 men.
Olaf C. Neilsen of Route H, Box 81, was the second Fresnan to be wounded in action in France, according to a message of May 3, 1918. He was in the Fifth Regiment U. S. M. C., arriving at the front in July, 1917.
Harold Franck of Clovis was mentioned by Admiral Davis for heroic rescue of thirty-five of the crew of seventy-five of the American munition ship "Florence H" which caught fire April 7, 1918, in French waters and broke in two. Franck is nineteen years old and the French admiral joined in the commendation. He was one of four brothers in the national service.
.As a war measure in 1918, the Yosemite Valley was opened as a range for the small cattlemen, the allotment for Fresno being about 6,000 head of cattle. On account of the 1917-18 drought season, cattlemen were also privi- leged in 1918 to use the Fresno Forest reserve ranges one month in advance of the season to conserve the winter feed on the plains and in the foothills.
In the latter part of May, 1918, 170 tons of flour in four cars were sent on to the allies in Europe, each sack bearing the inscription: "Flour saved by Fresno, California." Shipment was the first tangible result of the campaign in the reduction in the use of flour in the city alone by bakeries and households. Administrator G. S. Waterman estimated at this time that housewives had reduced flour consumption seventy-five per cent. since the rules went into effect.
In one city lodge room alone-that of the Woodmen of the World- hung five war service flags showing in June, 1918, stars as follows: Man- zanita Camp No. 160, W. of \V .. forty-nine ; Fresno F. O. E. Lodge No. 39, thirty-three; Pitiaches Tribe No. 144, I. O. R. M., twenty-one; K. of P. Lodge No. 138, fifteen, and I. O. B. B. Lodge No. 723, five.
Thirty members were at the dissolution June 11, 1918, of the German Language Club of the city high school. The German Club as it was known was next to the oldest existing organization in the school, formed under the leadership of Miss Florence Robinson, the teacher, in September, 1913, the Senate with its twenty-eight years being the oldest organization. Other school clubs have been formed and disbanded, but the German after five
559
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
years disbanded in the face of public opinion on the war. Besides taking part in war saving stamps, Red Cross and soldier activities, it adopted a French orphan and bought a fifty-dollar Liberty bond which has been given to the Red Cross.
Fresno contributed $1,259.98 to the million-dollar national fund for technical books for the soldiers of the army and the sailors of the navy.
The feature in the 4th of July, 1918, parade in Fresno city when every participant was on foot was the display of service flags by individuals, socie- ties, churches, mercantile and business enterprises showing in stars the number of relatives, members or employes in war service. The procession was headed by a banner with seventeen golden stars as the number that had given up their lives in action or in training camps. Another feature was the unfurling from the courthouse of a county service flag with the figure of "5740" as representatives in war service. The honor of hoisting this flag was conferred on Mrs. Mary E. Mankins of 2056 South Van Ness. the mother of Homer H. Blevins, the first Fresno city youth killed in action in France as a Marine Corps soldier.
The statement was made at the Red Cross Institute meeting in Fresno by A. B. C. Dohrmann as assistant manager of the Red Cross Pacific Division that the salvage work will eventually prove to be one of the great sources of income of the society, taking its place with the annual membership sub- scriptions and annual war fund campaigns. In holding the institute June 18 and 19, Fresno was making history. It was the first institute in the divi- sion and the first salvage institute in the United States. The Lower San Joaquin Valley Salvage division of ten chapters was formed with Fresno as central headquarters.
The returns on the last of the ten days of the drive of June 28, 1918, for pledges for War Savings Stamps with quota placed at $2,000,000 were :
City and Rural Districts $1,400,000
Outside Towns
650,000
Total $2,050.000
According to official figures, Fresno led all the counties of the state in this war savings drive. In actual dollars turned in on the quota, San Fran- cisco was at the top of the list with Fresno second. But in proportion to population and quota, Fresno is first. Four counties in the state exceeded their allotments by more than $100,000, namely :
County.
Excess.
San Francisco
$756,720
Fresno
360,610
San Mateo 167,283
Yuba 112,910
San Francisco with a population of over half a million had a quota of $9,420,460; Fresno with a population of 103.000 a quota of $2,054.000, giving an excess which is nearly half of San Francisco's over subscription with its more than five times the population. In all nineteen counties over subscribed and Los Angeles again failed in its quota.
It was stated that the impossible had been accomplished by pledging over $1,000,000 in about six hours and that the amazing feature of the achievement was that no figures had been held back to be cast into the total at the last. Yet only a day or so before, it was heralded that the county was $1,000,000 short in the drive and the county as one of the richest com- munities in the world, worth in round numbers $300,000.000, was in danger of having the "calamity" and "humiliation" befall it of "being classed as a slacker," because at date it had paid into the war funds only two and one- half per cent. of its wealth and three-fourths of this of interest bearing bonds. It was too much of the "Wolf! Wolf!" cry of the fable. The drive was 34
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
started with $412,000 already saved and invested in savings stamps, leaving $1,588,000 as the goal. The following table gives the quotas for the towns of the county, in the War Stamps drive :
Fresno
$1,407,100
Clovis
$ 40,000
Coalinga
119,700
Kerman
30,900
Selma
123,000
Parlier
30,200
Reedley
83.800
Riverdale
19,300
Kingsburg
69,700
Laton
16,300
Sanger
60,000
Del Rey
13,900
Fowler
50,500
County registrants of 1918, being those that attained the age of twenty- one since the first military draft registration of June 5, 1917, numbered less than 700 distributed as follows :
County Board No. 1
234
County Board No. 2.
201
Fresno City Board.
243
Total
678
The steamship "Fresno" was launched in the Alameda estuary on the evening of May 18 and Thursday, June 20 steamed out of the Golden Gate for the successful trial test of her machinery. This was considered speedy work on war time shipbuilding schedule. The mayor of the city and his wife, who christened the vessel, were on the trial trip.
Reuben Tufenkjian, living on ranch three miles northwest of Fresno, was the first, at the close of June, 1918, Fresno boy to be returned home from France wounded. He was pilot of a large American bombing plane and severely wounded in combat with German plane on the western French front. He had enlisted four months before in the engineer department as a truck driver, later transferred to the aviation and within three months after enlistment was in service in the American sector. During his six weeks at the front, he was in six combats with German machines and though wounded more than once not until the last did he receive injury severe enough to com- pel temporary retirement from service. Observer and bomb thrower were also hurt and plane of the Hun captured shortly after.
Fourth of July, 1918, a service flag was hoisted from the courthouse to show that 5,740 men from the county had entered the war service. The figure represented the men that had been drafted and those that had volun- teered in local recruiting offices, according to data secured by the exemption boards but not including volunteer enlistments before America declared war or enlistments of Fresnans in other cities and recruiting offices and not credited to the county. The figure is, however, approximately correct. The flag shows in fact the figure of 5,700, the idea being to record the service men according to hundreds to make it unnecessary to so frequently alter the displayed figure.
One of the most touching letters is the one that was received from Homer H. Blevins, the first Fresno boy to be killed in action in France. It was written before he went into battle and his whole heart went out to his "dear little mother." It was his goodbye letter and was as follows:
"May 15, 1918.
"Dear Mother :- Well, Mamma, I guess you have received my letter by this time. I am writing you this letter and am leaving it with the Y. M. C. A. man so that if I am killed you will get this letter. If you will receive this letter, you will know that I have done my bit in this war. And do not grieve over my death for we have only one life to live and one time to die. "Tell Walter and Ollie that their brother's last request is to take care
561
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of their dear old mother, till the good Lord takes her away from you, for she is all you have in this world and when you lose her you have no other.
"Well, mother, I can say this-I died for my country and for my people and I died with a smile on my face, thinking of my dear little mother.
"Well, Mother, I will close for I haven't much time to write.
"Well, good-bye and God be with you till we meet in Heaven.
"Your Son, "Pvt. Homer H. Blevins, Co. E., 8th U. S. Inf."
"France.
This letter came with another from "the Y. M. C. A. man" dated June 8. 1918. The boy's mother hoisted on July 4th the county service flag at the courthouse after the morning parade. To make a presentable appearance she had to make appeal to the Citizens' Committee on Arrangements to provide her with a black garment fitting the occasion.
Death came suddenly to Caswell B. Howard Jr., member of the Home Guards, after the 4th of July, 1918, parade in which he participated. It was from heart failure. Having been accepted, signed up and awaiting call to service in the naval reserves, the fact entitled him to military funeral and burial in the county Liberty Cemetery for soldiers. He was a barber by vocation, whose relatives lived at Clovis and who had a brother in the naval service in Virginia and another in Alaska.
In response to an appeal from the Gas Defense Service, U. S. A., the California Peach Growers, Inc., forbade its members to use peach pits in order to reserve all from the 1918 crop for the government, which would pay $7.50 a ton delivered at any of the warehouses on the railroad main lines. The pits were desired in the manufacture of patent gas masks. The pit charcoal has extraordinary qualities of absorption making it possible for men to remain in "gassed" trenches for eighteen hours, while with ordinary charcoal the masks become saturated in three hours. The secret process of manufacture was guarded by the government and early action was taken to prevent cornering of the pit market by enemy manipulation.
An interesting coincidence was connected with Seth McConnell, son of Mr. and Mrs. W. F. McConnell of near Clark's bridge, east of Kingsburg, who in July, 1918, was with the colors at Jacksonville, Fla. He was a student of the Fresno State Normal School after graduation from the Kingsburg high school. During the Civil War, grandfather was a prisoner of war at Jacksonville, during the Spanish-American War an uncle was stationed there, and Seth is the third of consecutive generations to be in Jacksonville, each in connection with a different war in the history of the nation.
Drs. J. H. Pettis and C. D. Sweet resigned from the Fresno city board of health in August, 1918, and also Dr. A. B. McConnell, they having been called into war service. Drs. C. P. Kjaerbye and George H. Aiken were appointed in their places. Dr. C. D. Collins, resident physician at the county hospital, resigned on like call and so did Drs. W. L. Adams and F. K. Pomeroy of the city emergency hospital. Not a few of the younger surgical and medical practitioners of the city and county answered the call of the government. Former City Health Officer L. R. Willson was another.
Corporal James Bonnar of Battery A of the Thirteenth Field Artillery was the first Fresno hero to return home September 28. 1918, from the battle field of Chateau-Thierry. He came from Fort Bayard, Texas, in the hospital of which he was under treatment after having been seriously gassed in the historic dash of the Yanks resulting in the smoothing out of the Rheims- Soissons salient. He returned home at the request of the citizens' commit- tee to aid by his presence in raising the fourth Liberty loan but missing railroad connections arrived the morning after the campaign opening parade of the night before. He was accorded many honors.
562
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
At the ceremony attending the dedication of the state service flag at Sacramento August 16, 1918, reminder was given that a total of 130,339 Californians had then entered the military or naval service of the United States, either voluntarily or through the draft, distributed as follows as to service branches :
Army Draft
66,862
Enlisted
32,686
National Guard
10,110
Navy
17,458
Submarines
3,254
Naval Militia
969
The number reported then killed in action or in service was 218.
No war record can ignore the wonderful achievement of the people in the subscriptions to the Liberty loans. It is without precedent in the his- tory of the world for the enormity of the sums of money loaned to the government for the conduct of the war. It is the best answer to the question whether the heart of the people was in the war. The United States of America entered that war on April 6, 1917, and eighteen days later congress authorized the Liberty Loan Bond Bill by which popular name it will go down into history. On May 2 the First Liberty Loan was announced and twelve days later the details were given out; one day later the campaign opened and one month later it was closed. The issue was for $2,000,000,000, bearing three and one-half per cent. interest and running for fifteen-thirty years. Bonds carried the conversion privilege entitling holder to convert them into bonds of a later issue bearing a higher interest rate. Four and a half million subscribers in every section of the land representing every class, race and condition subscribed for more than $3,000,000.000 but only $2,000,000,000 was allotted. Features of this loan were the promptness with which it was arranged and conducted, the universal patriotism with which the people labored for its success with the result of the over subscription of more than fifty per cent. Equally as notable a feature was the one that there was no interruption of the country's business by reason of this un- precedented demand upon the nation's money resources. On October 1, 1917, opened the Second Liberty Loan campaign and it closed on the twenty- seventh. The bonds bore four per cent. interest and run for ten-twenty-five years, carrying the conversion privilege. It was announced that one-half of the over subscriptions would be accepted. Nine million subscribers took $4,617,532,000 of the bonds, an over subscription of fifty-four per cent. and $3,808,766,150 were allotted. The enthusiasm was as great as that which supported the first, labor and fraternal organizations being especially active in the campaign and the women of the land giving splendid organized work to contribute to the success of the campaign. On the first anniversary day of the country's entry into the war, the Third Liberty Loan campaign opened on April 6, 1918, and closed May 1. These bonds bear four and one-quarter per cent. interest, run for ten years but are not subject to redemption before maturity and do not carry the conversion privilege. The loan was an- nounced for $3,000,000,000 but the right was reserved to accept all additional subscriptions. Seventeen million subscribers signed up for $4,170,019,650 and this was also the amount of the allotment. Feature of this loan was its very wide distribution and notably that the country districts so promptly and heavily subscribed, in a great measure making up their quotas before the cities. This loan was pronounced to have been the soundest of national financing. About a year before there were some 300,000 United States bond holders; with the third loan there were between 20,000,000 and 25,000,000. The Fourth Liberty Loan campaign opened Saturday, September 28, and closed October 19, the goal $6,000,000,000, the most stupendous financial achievement for any purpose ever undertaken by this or any other nation
563
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in the world's history and one which no other nation than this would attempt or could carry out to success. Six thousand million dollars-six thousand times a thousand thousand dollars! The human mind cannot grasp the enormity of these figures. The mere mention of them gives no adequate idea of their stupendousness. They are incomprehensible. Some one somewhere has tried to convey the idea of what this mountain of money represents, pointing out that it would take 200 years to count it a dollar at a time, that it would meet the pay rolls of the contending armies in the American Civil War for fifty years, endow the world's universities and build all the canals the world would ever have need of. Magnificent showing of the American spirit in this war, backed by the soul of the greatest republic in the world's history. Fresno's quota was $4,500,000-the city $3,009,200, the county $1,490,800.
Miss Margaret Staples, formerly of Fresno where she was employed in a bookstore, gained the distinction in October, 1918, of being the first San Francisco girl to apply for admission and enlistment in the Marines as a marinette, as also the first to be sworn in as a private in the service. The marinette wears uniform, her work is that of a clerical stenographer and for every woman enlisted a male marine is sent back to barracks for duty as a soldier.
According to returns under date of Sacramento, October 11, 1918, Cali- fornia's service flag was entitled then to show 296 golden stars. Killed in action numbered 158; died from wounds forty-nine; from disease thirty- four; in airplane accidents sixteen ; from accidents and other causes thirty- nine. As the total number of Californians was then more than 131,000, the percentage of actual loss was deemed small. No considerable portion of Californian troops had then crossed the ocean.
J. B. Welliver, who with wife conduct the club at Fresno Beach on the San Joaquin River, claim to have contributed the prize war family to the war with nine sons enlisted or in the selective draft. Welliver himself served in the Civil War from 1862 to 1865, then in Indian wars in a Kansas regi- ment. He was seventy-seven years of age and the sons ranged in age from thirty-nine as the oldest to twenty-one as the youngest.
April 6, 1917, the date that President Wilson signed the war resolution, is formally fixed as the legal date of the beginning of the war with Germany. This is according to an opinion of the judge advocate general of the army.
The forward change or "daylight saving" move was made on the last Sunday in March, 1918. the 31st. The clocks were set back one hour to normal time Saturday, October 27, 1918. Officially the hour hand was moved back to one at two o'clock on the following Sunday morning.
The two national dates for registration for the army were June 5, 1917. and September 12, 1918. There was also a registration June 5, 1918, of those who since one year before had attained the age of twenty-one. The first registration under the selective service law was of those between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one: those of September, 1918, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. The latter was estimated to have given 4,950 city and 10,050 county men-total 15,000, and in the state 406,700. The twenty-onesters' registration returned about 800 in county.
October 6, 1917, collection was made of old shoes by the Red Cross for shipment to Belgium. The footwear was deposited at the entrance of the courthouse park, back of the Salvation Army fountain. The pile of shoes made heap as wide as the thirty-foot wide circular base of the fountain and as high as the height of the central figure of the fountain. The "guess" was that 30,000 pairs of shoes of every size, color and condition were gathered and every pair worth a dollar.
The Fresno Home Guards Battalion of four companies was mustered in in November, 1917, in the service of the state. Edward Jones, former chief of police, with a record of a quarter of a century's military training, a captain
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in the Spanish-American War and for some years a major in the State Na- tional Guard, was afterward elected and commissioned major commanding the battalion. It was uniformed and armed with rifles. Coalinga, Fowler, Selma and other communities in the county had unattached Home Guard companies for protective police duty.
In September, 1917, the University Club had thirty-one of its members in the army in various branches. Many of these same members were credited as war service men by other organizations to which they belonged.
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