Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Hancock County, Volume II, Part 60

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913. cn; Currey, J. Seymour (Josiah Seymour), 1844-1928. 4n; Scofield, Charles J. (Charles Josiah), 1853- 4n
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1174

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THE LOCAL BOARD

After the registration, came the selection and appointment of the members of the Local Board. There were to be three members of each Local Board and the jurisdiction of the Hancock County Local Board was co-extensive with and limited by the territory of that county. Han- cock County was within the territory of the District Board which held its sessions at .

962

HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

Springfield and included many other counties within its jurisdiction. The District Board had jurisdiction of certain classes of claims for ex- emption, and of appeals and of certain other matters. The Local Board had jurisdiction of certain classes of claims of exemption and was required to perform all local duties associated with the operation of the selective service law.

The members of the Local Board were ap- pointed by direction of the President, but the President, or the department representing the President in this matter, received its suggestions from the Governor and the Governor relied principally for the names of proper appointees upon the members of the legislature.

On June 25, 1917, Philip Dallam of Warsaw, Dr. S. M. Parr and Judge Charles J. Scofield of Carthage, were appointed as the members of the Local Board of Hancock County, Illinois, and commission or authority to that effect was issued to them, by direction of the President, under the signature of F. S. Dickson, adjutant general, for the Governor of the state. As not unusually happens, the name of Mr. Scofield was spelled with an "h" as "Schofield" instead of "Scofield," which fact was reported to the ad- jutant general, whereupon the correction was made and new commission or authority issued under the correct name. Very likely, the mis- take in orthography would have been imma- terial, but it was considered safer to have the name of the member of the board correctly spelled. The adjutant general telegraphed as follows: "Sign oaths and so forth with correct name. Corrected appointment will be sent you." This was done as above stated.

Upon receiving their commissions, the mem- bers of the board met without delay at the court-house in Carthage. The courtesies ex- tended to the Local Board by the Board of Supervisors of Hancock County in many ways, including the use of splendid rooms at the court- house for their work, are worthy of recognition and record in this history. In the same con- nection should be mentioned the uniform cour- tesy and the efficient assistance of the court- house janitor, Ed. L. Booth, who kept the rooms in order and assisted in receiving registrants at the times of physical examination, and who, in many other ways, aided in the activities of the Local Board.

When the three members met in the room assigned for their use, which was the east jury room south of the circuit court room, the board

was organized by the election of Mr. Dallam as chairman and Mr. Scofield as secretary. The oaths were taken, and the proper reports were made to the state and Washington author- ities, and the board proceeded on the morning of July 2, 1917, which was Monday, with the discharge of their primary duty, which was to call upon the county clerk and obtain from him the registration cards and then to assign serial numbers to them in accordance with the rules and regulations promulgated by the Provost Marshal General, E. H. Crowder, under the supervision of the President or War Depart- ment.

ASSIGNMENT OF SERIAL NUMBERS

The object of the assignment of serial num- bers was to prepare for the great drawing to take place at Washington to determine the order of liability of registrants for service.

The assignment of serial numbers, with a registration of 2240, was not to be accomplished in a day. It required the active services of the three members of the board for many days, although it might seem to one unacquainted with the work and not understanding the re- sponsibility, that this preliminary service could have been more speedily accomplished.

- The requirement was that the registration cards be placed together without reference to townships or the numbers given them at the various places of registration, so as to have them without any special order or arrange- ment, and that the members of the board should then proceed to take the cards from the pile, one by one, and write thereon, in the desig- nated place, the red ink or serial number. This number was in red ink to distinguish it from any other number on the card. It was to be placed between the words "Form 1" and the words "Registration Card" occurring at the "left-hand top of the card." In case of mis- take, as, where the member of the board should inadvertently write the same number on two cards, or should miss or skip a number, or write the number illegibly, the number written on the card was to be lined out, not erased, and the correct serial number written in red ink in another place on the card designated for that purpose.

The assignment of serial numbers was inter- rupted by the celebration of the Fourth of July, which occurred on Wednesday. That, indeed,

963

HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

was a notable day in Hancock County. The people were stimulated to a high degree of patriotic enthusiasm by our entrance into the war, and the day was observed accordingly in Carthage and other parts of the county.

PREPARATION AND MAILING OF LISTS

After the serial numbers had been assigned, the cards were arranged in order beginning with serial No. 1 and continuing to serial No. 2240. A copy of every card, verified by the initials of one member of the Local Board, was sent to the Adjutant General of the State. There- upon, the board was required to prepare lists of the registrants in the order of their serial numbers, giving the serial number, the name

of the registrant, and his address. The list consisted of forty-five pages, in the preparation of which the greatest of care was exercised. In order to avoid any possibility of mistake, the list, when typewritten, was compared again and again with the registration cards and the serial numbers thereon. The lists when com- pleted were disposed of by sending one copy to the Provost Marshal General, by furnishing one copy for the press, by posting one copy in the office of the Local Board, and by retaining one copy by the Local Board for its official files. A copy was also sent to the Adjutant General.

Thus, before the drawing was to take place at Washington, the serial numbers were not only written on the registration cards, but lists showing the serial numbers, names and ad- dresses of the registrants were in the hands of the government and state authorities, were at the command of the press, and were subject to inspection at the office of the Local Board by all registrants and other persons interested. It may be said, in passing, that the telephone was in constant service in behalf of registrants who were calling upon the board, the county clerk, and others, to ascertain their serial numbers, and that these calls, in a single day, sometimes reached the number of one hundred or more. The secretary or some other member of the board took the time to look up and give the serial number of any registrant, in response to any such request.

GRATUITOUS SERVICES

In entering upon their duties two members of the board, Mr. Dallam and Mr. Scofield, de-

cided and so announced, that their services in this matter would be rendered without com- pensation. At that time it was supposed that the labors of the board would be completed within two or three months. It was not antici- pated that there would be further registration, that the questionnaire system would be devised and adopted, and this additional work cast upon the Local Board, or that the Local Board would have any duties to perform in the matter of mobilization. However, having undertaken to do the work without compensation as their con- tribution to the service, Mr. Dallam and Mr. Scofield continued so to render their services throughout the whole time of their work as members of the board, a period of more than one and a half years. During all this time Mr. Dallam was at Carthage for this service on an average of three days a week, and paid his own expenses without any charge therefor against the government, and Mr. Scofield, after the first three months of service, furnished his law office for the use of the board without charge, and paid for many supplies, deemed useful by the board, without making any claim therefor on the government. During all this time Dr. Parr, at considerable sacrifice as a pro- fessional man, gave his attention to the board work, receiving minimum compensation there- for. The record of the Hancock County board in these particulars, as shown by the reports of the Provost Marshal General, will be sum- marized in a subsequent part of this chapter.

In his Second Report the Provost Marshal General says :

"The term 'Local Board' occupies a unique place in the thought of the nation and in the hearts of the people. It has acquired a distinct individuality. Long after the selective service machinery will have been dismantled, and the processes of the draft will have faded from memory, the term 'Local Board' will hold its place in our speech as the typical mark of the system that lifted America from the most peace- ful of nations to a place of first magnitude among military powers. That mobilization of man power was chiefly accomplished, not by military officers, nor even by civilians peculiarly trained for such service, but by laymen from each community, chosen only for their unques- tioned patriotism, fair-mindedness, and integ- rity, and impelled solely by the motive of patriotic self-sacrifice."

964

HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

THE FIRST NATIONAL DRAWING

The first national drawing, based upon the serial numbers of the first registration, began at 9:30, on Friday, July 20, 1917, at the city of Washington, and ended at 2:16 on Satur- day morning, July 21st. It was necessary that this drawing should take place after the assign- ment of serial numbers had been completed and after the list of such serial numbers had been placed in the mail for transmission to the Provost Marshal General's office, as a guaranty against any possible alteration of the serial numbers (in order to change the order of serv- ice) after the public announcement of the draw- ing, which necessarily indicated the order of call for service.

The first serial number drawn was No. 258, and this drawing was made by Newton D. Baker, the Secretary of War.

The second serial number drawn was 2522, the third 9613, the fourth 4532, the fifth 10,218, and the sixth 458. In the assignment of order numbers by the local board of Hancock County serial No. 258 became order No. 1, but serial Nos. 2522, 9613, 4532 and 10,218, were omitted because the highest serial number in Hancock County was 2240, less than any of them, and so our order No. 2 came from the 6th draw- ing, which was serial No. 458.

ASSIGNMENT OF ORDER NUMBERS

In order that the Local Board might be able to assign order numbers, the Provost Marshal General furnished the board with what was called a master list, in which the serial num- bers drawn were set down in the order in which they were drawn. The board was instructed to draw with lead pencil a line through every number on the master list which exceeded the registration or highest serial number of the county. And so a lead pencil line was drawn through every number which exceeded 2240. The master list contained all numbers from 1 to 10,500 inclusive, arranged in the order of their drawing. In all counties and jurisdictions serial No. 258, the first number drawn, was order No. 1, but subsequent order numbers as compared with the serial numbers differed in many counties or jurisdictions, the divergence increasing as the assignment of order numbers proceeded.

At first there was some misunderstanding on

the part of registrants as to order numbers in Hancock County, and patience and time were required for the correction of the error. Order numbers assigned at Quincy were printed in the Quincy papers, and many registrants of Hancock County assumed that the order num- bers as applied to serial numbers would be the same in this county, which was not correct except at the very beginning, inasmuch as the Quincy registration was different from the Han- cock County registration. This is but one in- stance of the many vexatious questions which arose, taking up the time and taxing the pa- tience of the members of the board, and explains why so much time was required in discharging duties which to those not initiated may have appeared simple and easy of performance.

In dealing with such a mass of figures as the master list presented, the eye tires, and there is great danger of mistakes; but the sugges- tion of drawing a lead pencil line through the numbers not applicable to the particular county was very valuable in eliminating mistakes and making a certainty of the result.

As illustrative of this point, it is proper to say that two mistakes were made at Wash- ington in the printing of the master list, and that these were corrected by special order re- ceived weeks after the order numbers had been assigned. These mistakes were in the larger figures and did not affect the assignment of order numbers in Hancock County.

The master list as furnished for the purpose of the assignment of order numbers consisted of eleven large sheets. On each of the first ten sheets there were ten columns of numbers with 100 numbers in each column, making 1000 num- bers to the page, and on the eleventh page there were ten columns with fifty numbers in each column. These numbers represented the total drawing of 10,500.

On the first page there were 204 order num- bers for Hancock County; on the second page 211; on the third page 210; on the fourth page 182; on the fifth page 219; on the sixth page 196; on the seventh page 219; on the eighth page 210; on the ninth page 222; on the tenth page 214; and on the eleventh page 153.

In the ninth column of the first page there were thirty-two consecutive numbers which did not touch Hancock County, and in the next column there were twenty-four consecutive numbers in one place which did not furnish an order number to this county. In other parts

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965

HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

of the list there would be two or three or four or five or six consecutive numbers which fur- nished order numbers for this county. In some places the numbers which applied to Hancock County were in close array and in other places separated by a considerable space. The last three numbers drawn did not affect our regis- tration, but the preceding drawing, serial No. 2205, furnished our order No. 2240.

This is an interesting commentary on what is sometimes spoken of as the doctrine of chances.

As has already been stated, a list of regis- trants according to their serial or red ink num- bers, running from No. 1 to No. 2240, had been prepared and sent to the authorities and made available to all interested before the drawing. This was on Form No. 101. After the drawing it became necessary to prepare another list, known as Form No. 102, in which the names of the registrants were given according to their order numbers, beginning with No. 1 and end- ing with No. 2240. Upon cursory consideration it would have been thought an easy matter to prepare the list on Form No. 102. Such, how- ever, was not the case. The first number drawn was serial No. 25S, and this became order No. 1. The drawing did not show the name, as a matter of course, and it was necessary, in pre- paring the list on Form No. 102, to turn to the serial number on Form No. 101. This took time and required care and patience. Much of this work as to the first registration was done by Mr. Bell, who afterwards became chief clerk. The preparation of the list of order numbers was not so difficult as was the preparation of the list of serial numbers.

LISTS AND NOTICES

After the order numbers had been assigned by the board, notice was given to the registrants, and lists were prepared showing the order numbers in order from 1 to 2240, and the cor- responding serial numbers, and one of these lists was sent to the Provost Marshal General, another to the Adjutant General at Springfield, another was furnished the press for publication, another was posted at the office of the Local Board, and another retained by the Local Board for its files. The preparation of these lists required great care, and the lists were verified by the members of the board before they were mailed and posted as above stated.

The lists and notices which were required to

be posted at the office of the Local Board were invariably posted by this board in the office of the county clerk, where they were open to inspection by any person interested. Too much credit can not be given W. E. Miller, county clerk, for his courtesy and assistance to the board in this and many other ways.

The two lists, the serial-number list and the order-number list, were not sufficient for all purposes and the preparation of a third list became necessary, that is, a list showing the names of the registrants alphabetically ar- ranged, which list, owing to the pressure of the board work, was not prepared until after the members of the board had consumed many precious hours in hunting up the order numbers or the serial numbers of the registrants at their request by letter, by telephone, by telegram, or by personal appearance at the office of the board.

For example, a registrant would telephone for his order number so as to have some idea when he would be subject to call. He would be able to give his name, but the chances were that he did not know his serial number, but, even if he had known it, that would not have assisted materially in finding the order number. To find the registrant's order number it became necessary to take the list of order numbers and go through the list until the registrant's name was reached. This might take a minute, or five minutes, or a longer time, but there was no instance in which any such request was made where the board failed to search out the order number and answer the inquiry. After the alphabetical lists had been prepared, it was a simpler matter to answer such questions.

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION OF REGISTRANTS

Following the assignment of order numbers and the mailing and posting of the lists, the board was required to give notice to registrants to appear for physical examination. In this county the notices were given and arrange- ments were made for the physical examination of the first 454 persons on the list of order numbers. These examinations took place on August 6th, 7th and 8th. During the physical examinations, Dr. Parr, the medical member of the board, was present and participated, and Mr. Dallam was present, also representing the board, in a clerical and advisory capacity, while Mr. Scofield remained at the board office to

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HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

answer questions and hand out blanks to those wishing to claim exemption. The assistant ex- aminers were Dr. D. W. Loomis of Warsaw and Dr. L. C. Knight of Carthage, while Dr. C. L. Ferris of Carthage was the re-examining physi- cian. In making the examinations the services of clerks were required, who took down the facts on the examination sheets as announced by the examining physician. (Afterwards and before Nov. 1st, Order Nos. 455 to 960 were called for examination.)

EXEMPTION CLAIMS

Blanks were furnished for all kinds of ex- emption claims, such as where the registrant had a dependent wife, or wife and children, where he claimed as the support of his father or mother, or, in certain cases, of brothers and sisters, where he claimed to be an alien, or minister of the gospel, and for many other claims of exemption recognized by the law, or by the rules and regulations, and it took a great deal of time to find out what the regis- trants wanted and to furnish the appropriate blanks and to answer inquiries, making neces- sary explanations. At that time what are called farming exemptions were not before the Local Board in any manner, and blanks for that purpose had not then been furnished the Local Board, it being the contemplation of the law that the District Board should have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine that class of exemptions. (The District Board for this county held its sessions at Springfield, and was known as District Board for Division No. 2 of the Southern District of the State of Illi- nois.) It was hard to convince some of the registrants of these facts, for they claimed to have read contrary statements in the papers, and were inclined to believe that the Local Board was from the first closely connected with farming or agricultural exemptions. At a later date the Local Board was requested by the authorities to collect data and to make recom- mendations to the District Board as to this class of exemptions, although the District Board continued at all times to have exclusive juris- diction of this subject.

A vast amount of work was required in pass- ing upon claims for exemption. The members of the board read and examined the affidavits and considered and passed upon difficult ques- tions. In many cases the right to exemption

was clear, in others doubtful, and in others not to be entertained under the law and the pro- mulgated rules.

After the claims for exemption had been passed upon, notices were prepared and sent to the registrants, and a certain number of days was allowed for appeals to the District Board. From time to time as claims for exemption were disposed of by the Local Board and physical examinations held, reports were made to the District Board, and the District Board, from time to time, forwarded to the Local Board on Form 164 a partial list of men selected for mil- itary service, from which list, in the order in which their names appeared, registrants were to be called for transportation to the mobiliza- tion camps under calls from the office of the Provost Marshal General transmitted through the office of the Adjutant General of the state. These calls were specific to an extraordinary degree. In addition to stating the number of men to be forwarded, and the date of mobiliza- tion, the call specified the train, giving the number, the hour and minute of leaving, the railroad on which the men were to be entrained, all stops for meals and where meals were to be obtained, and all changes from one train or road to another in the course of transporta- tion, and not in a single instance was there any mistake in any of these details as to Han- cock County calls.

THE FIRST ENTRAINMENT

The first call on the Hancock County board was for the entrainment of eleven men for Camp Dodge. As soon as the call was received, notices were prepared and posted and mailed, all of which was done on Sept. 3, 1917. The registrants were ordered to report on Sept. 4th by three o'clock in the afternoon. They were to be entrained at 8:57 on the morning of Sept. 5th. The board was required to prepare lists on proper forms, one to be sent with the boys, another to be mailed to the commanding officer at the camp, and also individual papers as to each person entrained, including copies of the physical examination papers, and to make arrangements for transportation and for meals en route, and to receive and entrain the regis- trants, calling the roll as they entered the train, and to perform in connection with these duties many others requiring time and careful atten- tion, and so the entrainment of these registrants

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Hancock County, Volume II, Part 60

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913. cn; Currey, J. Seymour (Josiah Seymour), 1844-1928. 4n; Scofield, Charles J. (Charles Josiah), 1853- 4n Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1174

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913. cn; Currey, J. Seymour (Josiah Seymour), 1844-1928. 4n; Scofield, Charles J. (Charles Josiah), 1853- 4n
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1174