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 88
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White 3,797
Colored
57
Oriental
255
Total 4,109
Examined physically 1,756. Qualified for general service 833. For special or limited 199-total qualified 1,032. Ordered to entrain 906. Failed to report at camp six. Rejected at camp seventy-two-total seventy-eight. Remaining in service 828. Employed by Emergency Fleet Corps twelve. Registrations cancelled thirty-one. According to citizenship the figures are:
Native born
2,638
Naturalized
129
Aliens 1,311
The aliens in Class 1 numbered 210: in the deferred class 1,099. The married men in Class 1, 156; deferred 1,608-total 1,764. The single in Class 1, 975; the deferred 1,339-total 2,314. According to ages from twenty- one to thirty the number in Class 1 was 1,131 and the deferred 2,947. Total registrations after all cancellations 4,078; total delinquents reported sixty- four. The youngest registrant was Webster R. Davis, then of 654 M Street, fifteen years of age on March 4, 1918. On the September 12, 1918, regis- tration eight men of the age of forty-six and four between the ages of forty- seven and fifty-seven registered. One hundred eighty aged between twenty- one and thirty-one who were required to register at previous registrations came to the fore. The city exemption board continued almost until the end with only one change in personnel. Wylie M. Giffen retired on the opening day of the Fourth Liberty Loan because his personal and other public work would not longer permit giving so much of his time to war work. So also George C. Tabor retired from the clerkship and returned to his former duties as attorney for the California Associated Raisin Company. At the end the city board's personnel was of Alva E. Snow, Pete Droge and Charles T. Cearley, with Thomas E. McKnight as clerk.
Among the minor organizations that lent their aid in war work should not be forgotten the Junior Naval and Marine Scouts, fostered by the local marine recruiting station, chartered by Marine Scout headquarters in New York, January 1, 1918, with Raymond L. Quigley, city superintendent of playgrounds, as the county commissioner; David L. Newman as quarter- master and the city playgrounds commission as the executive committee with the five companies taken under its protecting wings. The recruited boys were from the city schools and gathered in localities contiguous to the various playgrounds. The organization was a semi-military one and no task, however small in connection with the patriotic efforts of the times,
590
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was disregarded by the Scouts but taken up with all the enthusiasm of the restless small boy. Notable was the work in connection with the fourth Liberty loan when it sold 184 bonds amounting to about $20,000. The other semi-military organization which had its origin in a desire of the playgrounds commission to furnish recreation for working girls was the four-company battalion of Sammiettes commanded by Mrs. Ethel Griffin as majorette to whom was assigned the task as one of the playgrounds supervisors, the cap- tains being assistant supervisors. The girls wore a neat khaki uniform. Like the Scouts and the other organizations, the Sammiettes were never back- ward to offer their services because the girls were not one whit less patriotic than the boys. One of the year's notable events was the twelve-day camp that the girls held at General Grant Park and the expense of the outing was limited to about five dollars per participant. The organization has a beautiful battalion flag that was the embroidery work of the girls themselves. The Scouts and Sammiettes had marine or army recruiting sergeants as drill masters.
The first registration for the war of all males between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one inclusive was held June 5, 1917, and throughout the nation on that day a census was taken in twenty-four hours of all mili- tary eligibles. The declaration of war was on the memorable date of May 18. According to the plan in all cities of more than 30,000 inhabitants the city clerk and the mayor were to conduct that registration and in the counties the sheriff and the county clerk. Clerk D. M. Barnwell and Sheriff Horace Thor- waldson located the registration centers in every precinct voting place as on the occasions of an election, from two to four registrars were appointed for every precinct, all the preliminary arrangements were made by the clerk's force, supplies delivered to the registrants, additional supplies and registra- tion cards. in this work citizens lent their assistance with loans of autos and the day's work was done and the services rendered as a patriotic tender as the government made no appropriation for that great day's work. The result of the day's registration was to be delivered to the county clerk at noon on the day after and the clerk to report returns to the provost marshal at Washington, D. C., and to the governor of the state. Fresno County was divided into three general districts, the city constituting one, County Division No. 1 embracing the Fiftieth Assembly district and that part of the Fifty- first lying outside of the city and Division No. 2 taking in the territory of the Fifty-second district. The two county exemption boards were organized July 3, 1917, and the county clerk delivered all records to them. They con- ducted their business in the cramped and inadequate quarters of the county clerk at the courthouse until December 1, 1917, when they and the city board removed to quarters in the Cory building and there continued their activities with the second day of registration, September 12, 1918, until the closing up of the records following that day of great rejoicing in the signing of the armistice. That second but smaller registration was on June 5, 1918, of those who reached majority since the first registration ; a third on August 24 of those who had become twenty-one since the previous registration and the fourth and last to take in then all between the ages of eighteen and forty- five inclusive. The original personnel of the two county boards was of the following named:
Division No. 1-Dr. R. B. Hollingsworth Jr., R. C. Baker and L. J. Arrants.
Division No. 2-H. H. Welsh, W. H. Shafer and Geo. B. Possons.
December 7, 1917, E. J. Bullard succeeded Arrants and Geo. Feaver Jr., took the place of Shafer, both taking up other essential government work. April 6, 1918, L. W. Gibson succeeded Welsh appointed assistant to Mark L. Requa of the fuel oil administration and August 12, 1918, Charles G. Bonner succeeding Possons who resigned because of ill health, leaving to the last on the board Dr. Hollingsworth and Baker of the original member-
591
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ship. The three boards performed an immense amount of labor and the work in connection with the registrations and the drafts demanded a large . clerical force. Roy D. Marshall was the secretary of the county boards. The county physical examinations were conducted in the courthouse law library, those of the city drafted at the city hall council chamber and for these the physicians, dentists and citizens volunteered their professional and clerical services. So also in the filling out of the questionaires, the county bar asso- ciation made details of its members to give aid to those not familiar with these complicated forms. These questionaires were not used prior to De- cember 15, 1917. In this registration and draft work, the first general activ- ity in connection with the war, a splendid example of the whole souled patriotism and accord of the people that was to follow was furnished. Regis- trants under the two county boards were:
Division
10,565
Division 2 10.009
Total
20,574
For the four registrations the number- was:
June 5, 1917
7,634
June 5, 1918
440
August 24, 1918
119
September 12, 1918
12,381
Total
20,574
Native born registered 13,299
Naturalized registered
7,375
Native born examined
5,980
Naturalized examined
611
Of the registered naturalized the national contributions were: Austria- Hungary 189, Belgium 1, Bulgaria 137, Central and South Americas thirteen, China fifty-two, Denmark 217, France eighty-four, Germany forty- six, England and colonies 482, Italy 790, Japan 1,988, Mexico 1,089, Nether- lands twenty-one, Norway twenty-four, Portugal 124, Roumania one, Rus- sia 671, Servia forty-four, Spain 227, Sweden 110, Switzerland sixty-nine, Tur- key (Armenians) 545 and all others 307.
A vivid tale was outlined, June 6, 1919, in court, in support of the ap- plication of D. L. Bachant for letters in the estate of his son, Jesse R. Bachant, who had been a Fresno high-school boy and manager of the Bachant ranch. He was killed in the fighting in the Argonne Forest in France, October 15, 1918. The youth left school in his second year to take charge of his father's ranch near Sanger. His estate consisted of forty acres of promising oil property near Coalinga, a birthday gift from his father. Bach- ant's comrades were, at the time of the court application, with the Army of Occupation and the remains of the young hero were buried under a white cross on Magdalene farm, near the forest, where he and sixty-nine comrades were mowed down by machine-gun fire. Bachant had enlisted here in Septem- ber, 1917, was sent to Camp Kearney, remained there eleven months, and hav- ing been sent across sea, arrived in France, in July, 1918. According to the story of his comrades, he was sent with Company K, Thirtieth United States Infantry, of the Third Division, to Chateau Thierry, and there volunteered as a dispatch runner, carrying orders and messages through barrages, rifle and machine-gun fire, to and from the front lines. He escaped here un- scathed, but having been transferred to the Argonne, he was killed in an attack after the objective had been attained, and sixty-nine that fell around him on the field were buried with him in a common grave. There was also 36
592
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the story that single-handed he had captured and brought into the American lines eleven German prisoners, and that while yet in the United States he had declined a commission because it would have kept him out of the fight at . the front.
According to report made in June, 1919, the Fresno City Fire Depart- ment contributed $16,237.50 to the Liberty loans and other war work relief, besides being active in Red Cross work and giving service during the in- fluenza epidemic in the fall of 1918, each fire-house being a depot for Red Cross salvage, and the firemen driving the truck, assisting in the improve- ment of the Liberty Cemetery, and driving an ambulance during the epi- demic. Loan subscriptions were: First and second, $1,500; third, $4,750; fourth, $4,250, and fifth, $5,000; total, $15,500. Donations were: Red Cross, $285; War Work, $250; Salvation Army, $53.50; Coast Department Fire Ambulance, $75; Liberty Cemetery, $74 ; total, $737.50 ; grand total $16,237.50.
The Fresno City Police Department is also proud of its war-contribu- tion record. Liberty bond subscription by the relief association was $2,000, other subscriptions, $100; total, $2,100. Tinfoil (3,260 pounds collected for Red Cross), $456.40; individual Liberty bond subscriptions, $7,600; war stamps, $845.45; Red Cross, $307; Y. M. C. A., $78.50; Y. W. C. A., $21.50; other organizations, $162. Grand total, $9,470.85. There is also to be credited the service that the police were called upon to render the government in assisting the secret service and federal operatives, in the great amount of work that they were not equipped to undertake, unassisted, and with danger lurking in unlooked-for places.
Fresno Post of the American Legion was organized on the night of May 29, 1919, as the first unit in the league of veterans of the European war, the coming soldiers', sailors' and marines' national organization as formulated at the convention at St. Louis. The post was said to have been the first in the state. With the post organized, there ceased to exist the tentative soldiers' organization known as the World War Veterans. The legion is on broader lines than the Grand Army of the Republic of the Civil War or the United Veterans of the Spanish American War. An auxiliary of the mothers, wives and sisters of the legionaries is proposed. The post started with a signed-up membership of over 400. Abolition of rank-distinction between officers and men of the legion and prohibition of any state or county political office-holder filling a station of power or trust in the legion were amendments at the second organization meeting of the post. A portion of the upper floor of the Short Building, at 1033 J Street, was leased for one year for meeting-place, reading-room and rendezvous. B. W. Gearhart, J. G. Crichton and Arthur H. Drew were the committee to present the formal draft of the post constitution. No post of the legion may be named for any living participant in the war, this being regarded as a posthumous distinction and honor.
A pretty story published in the New York papers and confirmed in part in correspondence between Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and George C. Roeding, under dates of March 18, and June 19, 1919, is the one that the Fresno president of the state board of horticulture refunded to the government $50,000 for patriotic reasons, turning back checks for that amount due him for the purchase of peach, apricot and nut pits and shells, for the manufacture of carbon for war gas-masks. The government had allowed him $12.50 per ton, but he was able to buy the material for $6.80, and the Fresno man gave Uncle Sam the "war profit". Altogether he bought 17,000 tons when the world's supply of cocoanut shells had been exhausted. Mr. Roeding took up the work while in Washington, in March and April, 1918, at a session of the national advisory board of the food administration. The point was to buy pits quickly and secretly to prevent German agents from cornering the market, destroying the visible supply or inflating the price. He was authorized to buy all that was offered at $12.50 a ton. The 1917
593
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
crop of shells was taken up at $6.80 and the 1918 crop of peach pits at $7.50. At the time of signing the armistice, 8,000 tons were piled up at the San Francisco Potrero to be manufactured there into carbon, to reduce the shipment weight from 100 to 15 tons per lot. The carbonizing was done by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. In the purchasing work Mr. Roeding was greatly aided by C. W. Griffin of the California Packing Cor- poration. Of the 1917 crop alone, costing $29,524.19, the refund was $20,- 153.91. The utilization of the charcoal from fruit pits in the saving of American lives in gas-attack warfare is interesting. It was soon found that wood charcoal became saturated with the gas, making the masks ineffective after three hours in action, whereas the charcoal from cocoanut shells, fruit pits or nut shells was effective much longer.
The final report for the County on the Fifth Liberty Loan is as follows:
Subscribed. $2,526,850
Quota. $2,515,950
100
8299
Coalinga
273,800
165,600
165
1155
Clovis
73,800
58,700
126
453
Del Rey
19,750
15,750
125
136
Fowler
76,450
62,550
122
442
Firebaugh
15,200
21,100
72
36
Kerman
23,700
19,600
121
209
Kingsburg
121,700
119,000
102
904
Laton
21,050
14,400
145
142
Parlier
47,800
38,000
126
402
Reedley
173,650
159,100
109
914
Riverdale
36,950
34,200
108
194
Sanger
115,600
101,000
114
773
Selma
224,050
197,100
115
818
$3,750,350
$3,522,150
106
14,877
City of Fresno oversubscribed, $10,900.
County as whole oversubscribed, $228,200.
The Civil War had its famous Gridley sack of flour for Red Cross war funds. The European War had its equally famous Shriners Red Cross Sack of Flour. The Shriners' sack beat the long held record of the Gridley sack in two regards. Mark Twain says that the Gridley sack largest sale was among the Virginia City (Nev.) Comstock miners, and it was $40,000. Oklahoma's Shriners doubled that sale. The Gridley sack traveled 15,000 miles, while the Shriners' sack traveled 35,000 miles and wore out twelve commercial flour-sacks in the handling. On May 21, 1919, John D. Mc- Gilvrey, potentate of Islam Temple of San Francisco, received the famous Shriners' sack of flour, started in that Temple by Historian Clarence F. Pratt, in May, 1917. The sack visited fourteen states, including Ohio, Ala- bama, Iowa, Montana, Virginia, Wyoming, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Michigan. It was sold at Honolulu; was twice sold on the Pacific Ocean, and sales in California were held at San Fran- cisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Santa Rosa. It was sold twenty-three times in the fourteen states, and the total was $134,512.84. The largest sale was by Oklahoma's Shriners for $86,675. San Francisco was next, with $28,701.25. Oklahoma's challenge to every temple in North America to meet its mark was never equalled. Sack was routed and booked like a traveling theatrical company because of the long jumps to accommodate Shriners' meetings and ceremonials, and frequently the booking had to be done by telegraph from San Francisco. Sack was lost for two weeks on the journey from Wyoming to New Jersey, but arrived at the temple at Trenton one hour before the announced sale. At Honolulu the island Shriners wove a lauhala covering around the commercial covering. At Helena, Mont., the nobles
Per ct. Subscribers.
Fresno City
594
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of Algeria Temple placed a bearskin over the Honolulu covering; at Butte, Mont., Bagdad Temple made a copper fez and band out of native copper, and the Oklahomites built a miniature oil derrick of silver and nickel and placed it over all the coverings.
Revised figures, by the war department, May 15, 1919, of the casualties of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe are : Killed in battle, 48,909; wounded, 237,135; total, 286,044. Loss in prisoners, 4,434. The number of wounded represents a duplication of some 7,000, that many being wounded more than once. The losses in prisoners were no longer included as casual- ties because of their having returned to their regiments.
A hospitable welcome was given the eight officers and 137 men that constituted the representation of the Fresno company of the One Hundred Forty-fifth Machine Gun Corps Battalion which was permitted by the War Department to stop over in Fresno, Tuesday morning, May 20, 1919, en route over the Southern Pacific on the final journey from France to the San Francisco Presidio for muster out. So many had been the changes in the organization since it was formed in the summer of 1887 that only one officer of the original organization and not more than thirty of the enlisted men returned with it for welcome in the home town of the company. That welcome for "Fresno's Own" was none the less hearty. Company was re- ceived at the depot by a committee representative of the Rotary Club, Cham- ber of Commerce and Raisin Festival Association, the original intention having been to have the company here on Raisin Day to participate as the guest of honor on that festive occasion, but it was the old tale of man proposing and some other power disposing. Capt. Clyde E. Ely, who was not a Fresnan, was in command of the detachment. The corps members were escorted to the Elks' Club and breakfasted, those who could go home taking advantage of the occasion. The Elks were the waiters at the break- fast and the Club was headquarters for the guests of the day. There was a parade at 11 A. M., starting from and ending at the Elks' Club, the high school closing a few hours for its cadet battalion and band to participate in the parade. At noon the gunners were assembled at the Forum Cafe for luncheon. The mayor made an address of welcome, and there were other short talks and responses. Girls decorated every soldier with a carnation button-hole bouquet. The siren whistles announced the parade and the Elks pinned on every soldier a purple and gold badge, with the legend "Welcome Home." In the afternoon the boys were left to follow their own bent and the theaters and the natatoriums were open to them. Every man had also been given a ticket entitling him to dinner at the principal cafes and res- taurants. For the officers there was a dinner in the evening at the Budo Cafe with twenty-five plates reserved. At night there was a reception and dance at the Commercial Club. Frank Everts, who went out as second lieutenant, and Donald Forsyth, as sergeant, returned with the rank of captain. The company did not see service under fire.
Miss Wilhelmina Miller, admitted to citizenship on May 21, 1919, before Judge H. Z. Austin, was said to be the first woman alien in the land to receive that recognition at the hands of Uncle Sam for her war service as a nurse. On her discharge from the United States Navy Nurse Corps, she did not have to file declaration of intention. She is a native of Denmark, entered the service October 22, 1917; was discharged February 24, 1919, and returned to America, landing at Boston, Mass., May 4, 1919. She crossed the submarine-infested seas, to care for the wounded in a base hospital in Scotland and, returning to California, became a nurse at the Burnett Hospital and decided to become an American under the war emergency measure favor- ing service men and women, which was given a liberal interpretation with regard to nurses.
595
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
"Welcome Home Day" celebration, for the returned soldiers, sailors and marines from California, has been set for September 9th, which is the day of the admission of California as a state of the union and therefore deemed an especially apt and appropriate one. The day set earlier in the year had to be foregone as the returning soldiers were too few in number to warrant a state-wide observance. The matter was submitted to a referendum of the counties and they being undecided as between the 4th of July and September 9th, the latter date was chosen by the State Committee on Readjustment.
According to an official report of July 8, 1919, including all corrections and alterations to July 2nd, the total casualties in the American Expeditionary Forces were given as 297,147. This was a net increase of 1,565 over the re- port of June 25th. Battle deaths were increased by 321, to a total of 50,150, and the total deaths by 400, to 78,917. The wounded numbered 216,309, and the missing 1,921, a decrease from the last previously reported total.
On June 20, 1919, the army local recruiting office received a few of the silver Victory Buttons, the first instalment issued to discharged soldiers. The bronze buttons are given to all who served in whatever capacity between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918; the silver buttons are given to those who received wounds in service. The first was issued to Private of the First Class, John B. Bingham of Fresno City, who lost his right arm in the Argonne Forest near Very, France, September 29, 1918, as a member of Company A, Three Hundred Sixteenth Engineers, of the famous Ninety- first Division. The second was awarded to Lieut. Edward Kellas, also of this city, and a member of the Ninety-first Division, in command of the supply company of the above engineers. Kellas is a young attorney.
The participation of the county in the Great War is in the hands of the Fresno County War History Committee to prepare a complete and verified casualty list of the soldiers in the war from the county, working in collabora- tion with a state committee. This history was scheduled to be completed about May 12, 1919. The question arose in the committee whether Homer H. Blevins listed as the first Fresno youth to lose his life in the war is entitled to classification as a Fresnan. Report was made and on the statements of facts made and learned the committee confirmed Blevins as on the casualty list. It is not to establish without controversy that his was the first life sac- rificed. At any rate there is no report of any previous death loss. The investi- gation established that young Blevins lived with mother and other members of the family in Fresno from February to April, 1914, when they removed to Jacksonville, Ore. In February, 1917, he went to Dallas, Texas, on a visit and while there enlisted in the infantry, U. S. A. About the time of his enlistment, mother and family, she being a widow who had remarried, returned to Fresno and had since lived here. In his enlistment he gave his address as with his mother, Mrs. M. E. Mankins of 2056 South Van Ness Avenue, Fresno. Blevins was born August 27, 1900, and was less than seventeen years of age when he entered the army and less than eighteen when his life was sacrificed to his country. She it was that as the mother of the first one from Fresno to fall in battle was accorded the honor of drawing the string that unfurled the county's service flag that waved from the court- house entrance during the period of the war.
The brave exploit of a Fresnan was pictorialized in a film by the govern- ment for exhibition in connection with the Victory Loan-an exploit that cost that hero his life. The film was shown here at the Liberty Theater, it was the first official film sent through California by the government to carry the loan, and the 100 feet of film came in a box bearing on its face the an- nouncement : "Official Film. Victory Loan. Property of the United States Government." Inside was the title of the life drama as the plea of one who would never come back but who sleeps under a white cross on the field where Pershing's Yanks fell on the Prussian Guards and so hotly pressed
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