USA > Indiana > The war purse of Indiana; the five liberty loans and war savings and thrift campaigns in Indiana during the world war > Part 5
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"Enclosed please find list of counties showing total banking resources and their allotments and the percentage based upon the allotments sent out by the Federal Reserve Board, which you will see ranges from 11 to 80 per cent. of total banking resources. If my figures are correct, the total banking re- sources (of the northern counties) are $581,163,500. Six- teen and one-half per cent. of this makes a total of $95,891,- 895, which is more than the allotment. It occurs to me that a 16 per cent. allotment is all that should be expected from Indiana."8
This feeling of apprehension as to exact fairness being done the state in its assigned quotas never quite disappeared among the loan leaders and many bankers.9
7. Second Liberty Loan Files. Letter dated September 25, 1917.
8. Ibid. October 5, 1917.
9. An indication of some of the early "quota" trials of the Indiana leaders with reference to the quotas which then were apportioned in Chicago for the northern coun- ties, is given in a letter of October 3, 1917, from Mr. Wade to Mr. Childs, in part as follows :
"In your letter of this morning, giving us the apportionments, we find so many discrepancies that we expect to make a just and equitable reapportionment based on banking resources, and will take such percentages as will aggregate $95,000,000, pro- viding that is the figure for that portion of Indiana in Federal Reserve District No. 7.
"As an illustration of the inconsistency in the apportionment Vermillion County was given a quota of approximately $3,700,000, when its banking resources are only $2,400,000. As a further illustration Jennings County was apportioned $856,800 and Decatur County $714,000. Jennings County is poor, not only as an agricultural county, but is short in banking resources. Jennings County's apportionment should be about sixty per cent. less than Decatur. Most of these counties show an increase over the First liberty loan allotment of around three hundred per cent., while Marion County showed only a fifty per cent. increase.
"We have not lost heart, but some of our county chairmen are appalled at the apportionments. The county chairman of Vermillion County wonders how he is going
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
Southern Counties Prepare for Drive
In the twenty-four southern counties of Indiana, Marcus S. Sonntag of Evansville was again named district chairman. He had general supervision of the campaign in the southern coun- ties, and appointed a chairman in each county to take imme- diate charge of the drive in his own county. In general the same plan of organization was followed in the southern coun- ties as in the northern sixty-eight counties. A speakers' bu- reau was organized in each, and a woman's organization was effected to assist in the general sale of bonds. The publicity features and sales organizations were also similar.
Opening of Second Loan Drive
The Second Liberty Loan drive throughout Indiana was ushered in on Monday morning, October 1, by the firing of bombs in the county seat courthouse yards. The first bond purchaser in Marion County was Mrs. Catherine A. Mayer, 79 years old, a woman of German birth. She subscribed for $2,500 of the Second issue through the Marion County wom- an's committee. Mrs. Mayer had been born in Germany and had come to America in a sailboat in 1853. James D. Scott, an Indianapolis real estate man, was given credit for the first bond purchased in the Second loan among the men of Marion County. His subscription amounted to $500. D. E. Ricketts, a salesman traveling out of Topeka, Kas., was the second man to buy bonds at the Marion County headquarters.
The program of the carly days of the Second campaign centered on the visit to Indianapolis of William G. McAdoo, secretary of the Treasury. Secretary McAdoo's meetings in Indianapolis found Charles Warren Fairbanks, former vice- president of the United States, and other well-known Hoosiers at his side, although Mr. Fairbanks and many others of his various escorts while in the city were opposed to the secre- tary in political faith. Mr. Fairbanks, in introducing the secretary at the Tomlinson Hall meeting referred to this fact, and also outlined America's and Indiana's duty in the war, when he said:
to sell $1,000,000 worth of bonds more than he has banking resources, but he says he will do his best." An examination of the files of the Second liberty loan campaigns shows that this particular case was later remedied. Troubles of this type continued more or less all through the loans, but eventually with the closer co-operation that came between the Federal Reserve Bank agencies and state leaders, and with the closer organizations which developed everywhere, they were kept in the background and the fixing of quotas became more systematized during the later loans.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
"We are met, my friends, without trace of partisan dis- tinction. We find here no political divisions. We are, per- haps, not in entire accord with respect to political policies. But with reference to the supreme question of the hour, the prosecution of the war to a successful issue, we are not partisans, but patriots. Patriotism is all-pervasive. We stand as one in the presence of our national enemies, and are resolved above all else to uphold the hands of our leader, the President of the United States. In making war it is imperatively necessary that the government war chest should be well supplied, for the government must have the ability to furnish in abundance everything needed to meet the requirements of our soldiers, both in the camp and upon the field.
"Indiana did her part in the past in full, rounded measure, and our friend (the secretary of the Treasury) needs no as- surance that we shall do our duty again and again, so long as our beloved republic is in peril. This colossal sum which is now to be raised would prove impossible to some govern- ments, but it will not cause the people of America to hesi- tate. If Germany thinks that she can conquer America she knows little of the heart of America. . America is slow to anger, but when she draws her sword in a righteous cause her gallant soldiers do not stop until victory has been achieved."10
Secretary McAdoo in his address reviewed the transgres- sions of Germany and her allies against America, and urged the necessity for universality of democracy.
"If we can make democracy universal," he said, "if we can translate present despotic governments into free governing nations, you will not have wars any more. That will be the best guarantee for peace because self-governing nations are pacific, as we know by our own experience." He continued :
"The thing that is underneath every war, and without which war cannot progress, without which national security cannot be achieved, without which the wheels of government stop, without which business and all the affairs of American life could not live, is money. . . The government does not ask you to give it a dollar. It does not ask for any gifts so far as money is concerned. The bulk of the necessary money must be raised by bond issues since taxation represents only a small
10. Indianapolis Star, October 3, 1917.
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
part of this colossal task. And what does the government offer? A superlatively safe and desirable investment-the greatest ever offered to any people. There is nothing so good as a government bond; there is nothing so near cash as a government bond; there is nothing the principal of which is so absolutely safe as a government bond; there is nothing which is so available as collateral in a bank as a government bond, and there is nothing upon which your interest will be paid so certainly as upon a government bond. And while you are buying that bond, which is the best investment in the world for yourselves, you are helping this splendid cause, you are helping every soldier and sailor who wears the uniform of his country, and you are helping, moreover, to keep the flag of America-the Stars and Stripes-in the skies."11
In his talks in Indianapolis Mr. McAdoo pointed out that Germany's ultimatum, attempting to bar the ships of the United States from the war zone, under threat of sinking them would mean destruction of more than $3,000,000,000 of export business annually to the United States. The secre- tary urged that the oversubscription of the Liberty Loan was the "primary step" towards victory.
During the early days of the Second loan campaign news from the battlefronts of Europe continued to serve as the most wonderful publicity that could be devised for the sale of bonds. Many stories relating to Indiana were being printed. One such was carried in the press on October 3rd. It told that Richard T. H. Stout, a Hoosier, formerly of Indianapolis, had received a French War Cross for transporting wounded soldiers under heavy fire and gas attacks. Stout was a mem- ber of the American contingent at the front then designated as "Section No. 1, of the American Field Service."
On October 3, Will H. Wade gave out a statement to the press, in which he said: "The spirit of Hoosierdom is plainly shown in the subscription of the Third National Bank, of Greensburg, through its cashier, Walter W. Bonner, who also is the Decatur County Liberty Loan chairman. The bank takes $200,000, which is more than 20 per cent. of its total resources."12
On the same date a dispatch to Indianapolis from Goshen, told that William H. Charnley, chairman for the Loan com-
11. Indianapolis News, October 2, 1917.
12. Indianapolis Star, October 3, 1917.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
mittee in Elkhart County, had placed a personal subscription for $35,000 of the bonds. These two individual instances of early subscriptions are included here merely to show that de- termined efforts were being made throughout the state to bring the people generally to a realization that their greatest financial task was ahead of them.
Marcus S. Sonntag, who had again been named the chair- man for the twenty-four southern counties of Indiana by the Eighth Federal Reserve Bank organization at St. Louis, had begun his campaign by appointing county chairmen. Mrs. Fred Lauenstein of Evansville was again appointed Chairman of the Women's Liberty Loan committee for the southern counties. Thus the whole state of Indiana was started on the Second loan campaign officially by October 4th.
State Council of Defense Aids in Second Loan Campaign
Following a conference between Will H. Hays, Chairman of the State Council of Defense, and Messrs. Wade, Jewett and Forrey, of the campaign committee, on October 6, 1917, the following telegram was sent by the State Council of De- fense to each of the ninety-two chairmen of defense councils :
"The state campaign committees of the Liberty Loan have asked the State Council of Defense to aid in the distribution of Indiana's quota of the Second Liberty bonds. We are going into this just as hard as possible and want the county councils of defense to prepare accordingly. Please get in touch immediately with the Liberty Loan chairman of your county, to whom the state Liberty Loan committee is this morning wiring. Meet with him and help plan campaign and do everything possible in the premises immediately. Please send immediately to us report as to preparations made to date in your county for this sale."13
This co-operation unquestionably bore fruit. One of the more familiar ways in which results appeared was the use of the "public opinion power" of the State Council of Defense in urging recalcitrant bankers and others to do their full duty in the loans. Examples of how the State Council exer- cised this power with individuals, who were Loan "slackers" occur throughout the records now on file with the state.
A constant bombarding of the various county chairmen by numerous letters during the opening days of the Second loan
13. Second Liberty Loan Files; telegram dated October 6, 1917.
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
drive was kept up and they were urged to prepare their or- ganizations for a tremendous effort. On October 8, 1917, Mr. Wilsey wrote the chairmen :
"The Campaign Committee wishes to impress upon the banks of the various counties in this state the fact that we have only twenty days to secure our proportion of the sub- scription to the Liberty Loan and also to impress upon you the necessity of perfecting and enlarging your organization for the purpose of a wider distribution-and to see that every man, woman and child in your county is given an op- portunity to become an owner of United States Government Liberty Bonds.
"As bankers, you all know that any unsold portion of your allotment must be taken by banks, as each county must 'come through' with its full quota and the more you distribute the less you will have to take."14
In many counties the real start of the Second campaign was made October 8. On that date, dispatches to Indianapolis papers said that a total of $5,216,250 had been reported to state headquarters, the larger part of which was in Marion County. In Rush County it was reported on that day that Corwin Stites, a veteran of the Civil War, had been the first to buy bonds of the Second issue and that he, likewise, had been the first to buy bonds in the First loan.
From Bartholomew County came news that day that the school teachers had been definitely organized and were con- ducting a campaign among the children, aimed to interest their parents in bond purchases. The Woman's Franchise League in Indianapolis and elsewhere, began active campaigns for the sale of bonds.
As an indication that the gospel of the Liberty Loan was beginning to seep deep down into the public in Indiana was an editorial, printed in the Indianapolis Star, October 8, in part as follows :
"Those who are actively engaged in carrying the Second Liberty Loan campaign to a successful conclusion report there is much more interest among purchasers of small lots than was true in the first campaign. The Liberty Loan
14. Second Liberty Loan Files; letter dated October 8, 1917. Mr. Wilsey was rely- ing upon public opinion power to compel cach bank and each county to take the full allotment when he used the word "must" in this connection. As a matter of fact at no time during the war was sale of the bonds compulsory except in so far as public sentiment controlled various communities.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
opened a new field to the citizen with a small accumulation to be invested. He was not sure as to how he should go about buying a bond and was not familiar with how the interest is remitted and how he might dispose of his security in the event he should desire to do so. All that was made plain in the last Liberty Loan campaign. The people now understand the op- portunity that is extended to them in the new offering and it is not surprising that there is an increased demand for small lots."
Of the many encouraging reports that came to the State Headquarters, none attracted more attention than that re- ceived from Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where Hoosier troops were in training. The Indianapolis news- papers of October 8th and 9th printed reports from the camp stating that soldiers had subscribed for a total of $200,000 worth of bonds. A later dispatch from Washington anounced that the troops at Camp Shelby were leading all other camps in the United States in making Liberty Loan subscriptions. Two days later the Indianapolis News printed a dispatch from Camp Shelby, announcing that the following units had sub- scribed the amounts indicated herewith: One Hundred Fifty- first Infantry, $56,000; One Hundred Thirty-ninth Field Ar- tillery, $57,250; Machine Gun Battalion, $21,950; One Hun- dred Thirteenth Sanitary Train, Ambulance Companies, $12,- 900; Field Hospital, $3,850; four companies of Engineers from Indiana, $9,000. Another report dated October 22, 1917, said that the troops at Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indian- apolis, had subscribed a total of $718,000.15
Workers Urged to Speed Up The Drive
On October 10, another appeal was sent out from the state headquarters, calling upon certain county chairmen to renew their efforts. The opening paragraph of the letter read as follows :
"Do you realize that over one-third of the time for taking subscriptions for the Liberty Loan has elapsed and that your county has to date failed to report any sales ? We also want to say that the campaign committee is willing to assist you in any way we can from furnishing speakers to going with you to see the banks of your county, which, as a
15. Indianapolis Star, October 22, 1917.
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
last resort, must be relied upon to take the county's quota and in turn redistribute among their own investors."16
On the same day, October 10, a proclamation was issued from the Governor's office signed by Lieutenant-Governor Edgar D. Bush,17 calling on all the ministers of the state to give special attention to the Liberty Loan in their sermons of the following Sunday, October 14th. County chairmen were asked immediately by the campaign committee to com- municate with all ministers in the hope of stirring up the people of the state to a realization that a tremendous task was ahead of them. The newspapers also were asked to give the proclamation and other news of the Loan campaign all the publicity possible in the outstate counties so that the state might awaken to its possibilities. Lieutenant-Governor Bush issued a letter to county and municipal authorities asking that no public security issues be offered until the Second loan cam- paign had come to a close.18
At the end of the first week of the campaign it was ap- parent that strenuous efforts would have to be invoked to assist Marion County in taking her maximum allotment of approximately $15,000,000. A great mass meeting was sched- uled for Monday night, October 9th. Charles W. Fairbanks, Albert J. Beveridge, Senator James E. Watson and others were called on to make addresses and a monster parade, par- ticipated in by the organizational life of the city generally was arranged. Similar efforts were being made in many counties by the end of the first week of the Second loan cam- paign, as it began to dawn on Hoosier leaders that the re- sponse to the Loan was not as great as had been hoped for at first.
In the twenty-four southern Indiana counties,-members of the Eighth Federal Reserve District-the result of the first week's drive proved a success. During the early days of Octo- ber, certificates of indebtedness had been sold through many of the banks throughout the southern counties in anticipation of the opening of the Loan. The Indiana State Bankers Asso- ciation met in Evansville on October 10th, and this occasion was used for arousing intense enthusiasm for the Loan cam- paign.
16. Second Liberty Loan Files; letter dated October 10, 1917.
17. During the Second liberty loan drive, Governor James P. Goodrich was eon- fined to a hospital due to a severe attack of typhoid fever.
18. Second Liberty Loan Files; proclamation dated October 10, 1917.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
Reports of determination on the part of numerous persons to help in making the drive a success were coming in to Indian- apolis headquarters from numerous sources. From Muncie came a report on October 10, that a farmer,-whose name the Loan officials would not give,-had sold a big farm in that neighborhood and with $25,000 cash as the proceeds, was buying Liberty Bonds. The farmer estimated that he would obtain a return of $20 a week, with principal and in- terest absolutely safeguarded, and he announced that he be- lieved this investment a better one than his farm.
A large subscription from a labor organization in Indiana was reported on October 12, under the following significant paragraph :
"Pro-German agitators who are shouting that American workingmen are against the war and will not support the government are invited to memorize this subscription made yesterday to the second issue of Liberty Bonds :
"United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, $50,000.19
On October 12, appeared a plea to the people of Indiana, written by Dr. William Lowe Bryan, President of Indiana University, as follows :
"We must pay. We have not yet begun to pay as the peo- ple of Europe have had to pay in work and money. We must sacrifice. We have barely touched with our lips the cup of sacrifice which our friends and our enemies in Europe have drained almost to the dregs. We are fighting to keep what our fathers at Valley Forge were fighting to win for us. Which of us has walked in their bloody footsteps ?
"Do we refuse these sacrifices? Consider, then, the Hohen- zollern victorious and dictating what we shall pay! Does any one dream that he would show us mercy?
"The Prussian, who conquered Denmark in 1864; Austria, Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, Wurttemburg and Hesse in 1868, and France in 1870,-the Prussian who has covered every acre of ground that he has conquered in this war with black- ness and horror-that Prussian, if victorious yonder, will come here and we shall pay in blazing homes, in children slain and women violated.
"There was an American once that said to the pirates of the Mediterranean :
19. Indianapolis Star, October 12, 1917.
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
"'Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute.'
"There was such an America. And now -? "20
Thus were the fires of patriotism kindled in Indiana! Con- crete results were reported in numerous dispatches that found their way into print. A news dispatch of October 13th car- ried the following story :
"Bloomington, Ind., October 13 .- When Uncle Jake Jacobs, an aged German peddler who had lived in Bloomington forty years, died a few weeks ago, he left $1,200 in money to go to his widow in Germany. The estate came up for settlement today, and Judge Miers ordered that the $1,200 be invested in United States Liberty Bonds and held by a local bank until after the Kaiser is defeated, and then turned over to Mrs. Jacobs. Three of the Jacobs boys are in the German army."21
Another report sent from Muncie related how James Rob- inson, a colored janitor, who had a wife and six children, bought a $50 Liberty Bond. "There's no chance for me, with all that big family, to be allowed to go and fight the Germans like I want to", he said, "and so I thought the next best thing would be for me to skimp a little-that is, me and my family- and fight the Kaiser the best we can by buying a Liberty Bond."22
Near the middle of October the newspapers began to carry some pessimistic reports concerning the future of the cam- paign. The total quota for the state was still considered in excess of $95,000,000 and little more than ten per cent. of this had been subscribed for.
By October 16th each of the sixty-eight northern counties had submitted a report on the results of the campaign to date. The district total amounted to $13,724,450. Several large sub- scriptions to the bonds were announced in the press of Oc- tober 17th. Kingan and Company, of Indianapolis, subscribed to $200,000 ; the Great Council of the Improved Order of Red Men of Indiana, then in session in Indianapolis, subscribed for $50,000 in bonds; reports from Lake County said The Stand- ard Oil Company of Indiana had subscribed $1,000,000 one- half of which was to be credited in Chicago and the other one- half in Indiana; the American Central Life Insurance Com- pany announced $100,000 subscribed for bonds; the Misha- waka Woolen Mills of Mishawaka, reported $100,000 sub-
20. Indianapolis News, October 12, 1917.
21. Ibid. October 13, 1917.
22. Ibid. October 12, 1917.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
scribed; and the Kiefer-Stewart Company, of Indianapolis an- nounced it had taken $50,000. On October 18, Henry W. Bennett, President of the State Life Insurance Company, In- dianapolis, announced a subscription by the company of $300,000. This sent Marion County's total for that date above the $5,000,000 mark, while all the northern counties had barely topped the $15,000,000 mark.
On October 17, Lieutenant Governor Edgar D. Bush, serving during Governor Goodrich's convalescence, issued a procla- mation, designating Wednesday, October 24 as "Liberty Day". The proclamation urged that "wherever possible stores and public places be closed during the afternoon and the people of the cities, towns and country districts of Indiana join in ap- propriate ceremonies doing everything possible to assist the Liberty Loan."23
The great mass meeting held in Indianapolis, addressed by Secretary McAdoo, did not have the lasting effect which had been hoped for, and later on in the campaign it was decided to hold another meeting for stimulating greater interest in the drive. On October 18th Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis of New York addressed a gathering of people at the Murat Temple. Thousands were turned away from that meeting. The story told by Dr. Hillis of the wantonness of Germany did much to arouse those that heard him, and those that read what he said, to a realization of the fact that the war was being waged for the preservation of civilization.
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