USA > Indiana > The war purse of Indiana; the five liberty loans and war savings and thrift campaigns in Indiana during the world war > Part 9
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4. How about the use of intimate stories written by women in your community for the local newspapers, setting out how small savings in the kitchen and the home generally may work to save enough money in each home to buy a Liberty bond?
5. Will you arrange for the issuing of proclamations to start off the Liberty Loan campaign, April 6, in each town and city? Mayors and
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
town boards should be the vehicles for these proclamations, and each should make news for your newspapers.
6. If you or your county Liberty Loan chairman have not already done so, can you not arrange for Liberty Loan speeches at every per- formance of your local theatres and motion picture houses, in every pulpit, at every church service and at every lodge meeting and similar meeting of organizational character from now until the loan campaign is completed?
7. Wherever a service flag is displayed in a home or business house, is there not a possibility that you, through publicity or personal contact by other Liberty Loan workers in the community, can inspire some man or woman in that home or business house to make it a personal responsi- bility to sell at least one Liberty bond in direct support of that service flag?
8. Of course, you are planning to utilize in a publicity way the Liberty Loan activities of every organization of men and women in your county. Get Liberty Loan talk among the members of these or- ganizations started in your county and keep it going. It will work wonders for your selling campaign.
9. If there are newspapers in your county which have cartoonists, make it a point to see that those cartoonists devote their productions to Liberty Loan in an educational way now, and with a "punch" during the campaign.
10. If you or your Liberty Loan chairman has not yet received a blank requisition from Chicago for posters and other advertising ma- terial to be distributed in your county, please notify immediately the Chicago Liberty Loan publicity headquarters to that effect, and if you have received this requisition, be sure to fill it in immediately and send it post-haste to Chicago so that you will get your quota of this material. You should utilize every poster, every pamphlet, booklet and every book that you can obtain from Chicago in the educational publicity which will be necessary to send the state to a successful climax in this campaign.
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11. Merchants and other wagon and automobile owners in every town and city in your jurisdiction should paint a Liberty Loan slogan, such as "Keep the Glow in Old Glory", "Buy Liberty Bonds", "Back up Sammie with Your Bonds", or some similar Liberty Loan slogan on vehicles that deliver goods throughout your territory, and the sooner you stimulate the painting of such signs the more effective they will be.
12. In your parades on April 6, the opening day of the bond sale, will it not be a good plan to feature a special group in each parade to be composed of the relatives, such as mothers, wives, fathers, etc., of enlisted men? Perhaps they may ride in automobiles, or if there are enough of them, they may form a section of the parade on foot.
13. We are contemplating an organization among the fraternal bodies of the state, which will result in special Liberty Loan meetings being called by every lodge of men or women in your jurisdiction. In- structions will be given that the news of such meetings be taken directly to the newspapers in your community. This ought to present a wide field of publicity to you.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
14. Please ask the reporters, writers and editors for your local newspapers to emphasize Liberty Loan wherever it is mentioned in public addresses or wherever they run across it in their daily routine of news stories.
15. Will you take up immediately with your county chairman the planning of some sort of an organization which will result in the burn- ing of beacon lights on all hills and other prominent places during the night of April 5th, and April 6th, and as a corollary of this, can you not interest all the school teachers and school officials of your county and other public officers in placing beacon lights in the schoolhouse win- dows and in the windows of other public buildings on the night of April 5th and the night of April 6th, to commemorate the anniversary of America's entrance into the war and the opening of the Liberty Loan campaign? These lights might be red, white and blue.
Yours very truly,
Director of Publicity Indiana Liberty Loan.22
While plans for these localized publicity campaigns were being worked out the larger state organizations were being asked to co-operate in the news dissemination by some defi- nite action of each one towards furthering the Loan senti- ment. Thus, the executive board of the Indiana State Fed- eration of Labor, through the efforts of Charles Fox, its president, adopted resolutions calling on all local labor unions to support the forthcoming Loan, and made the resolutions in the form of a letter to Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo. The letter was transmitted to the executive officer of every labor union in Indiana, with instructions that it be read and acted on at a meeting of the Union. The letter was as fol- lows :
To the Hon. Wm. G. McAdoo,
Secretary of the Treasury,
Washington, D. C.
Through the Seventh Federal Reserve District Bank
Liberty Loan Organization for Indiana.
Dear Mr. McAdoo :-
"Labor in America is behind the government of the United States in the prosecution of this war for the ideals of Democ- racy. Labor in Indiana is solidly behind patriotic and just efforts to carry this war through to a victorious end.
"Labor in Indiana as represented by the Indiana State Fed- eration of Labor is determined that no act shall be left undone on the part of organized labor in Indiana to accomplish this purpose.
22. Correspondence, Third Liberty Loan, letter dated March 22, 1918.
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
"Desiring to act in constant co-operation with all other just and fair agencies in the state of Indiana, the Indiana State Federation of Labor hereby takes its stand definitely in favor of the oversubscriptions of Liberty Loan securities by In- diana as a State, and hereby pledges itself as an organized unit and pledges the local unions within its jurisdiction to leave no act undone that will help bring about the success of the next succeeding Liberty Loan campaigns in Indiana.
"In order to accomplish this Hoosier part in this war activ- ity the Indiana State Federation of Labor calls upon all its component parts throughout the state to loyally subscribe to the next Liberty Loan to the extent of their respective re- sources and likewise calls on the patriotic employers of In- diana to meet this spirit in the laboring men of the State, and with capital and labor joining hands in Indiana to pro- ceed to the accomplishment of Indiana's part in this phase of war activity without delay.
(Signed) ADOLPH J. FRITZ ARTHUR LAHR JOEL MESSICK DAVID J. WILLIAMS JAMES A. LECHLER ALDEN B. HATTERY
Executive Board of the Indiana State Federation of Labor"23
The Woman's Franchise League of Indiana, with more than two hundred local organizations scattered throughout the state, took up the work earnestly. Katharine C. Green- ough of Indianapolis, was named as Liberty Loan chairman, and bonds totalling more than a million and a half dollars were sold directly through the organization of the Franchise League.24
Protestant and Catholic churches were drawn into the gen- eral program in various ways through appeals to their execu- tive officers and the religious life of Indiana responded warmly to the call.
Indiana's Quota for Third Loan
While preparations were going forward for the Third lib- erty loan drive, the state quota committee was again ap- pointed, which included Will Wade as chairman, Will Irwin,
23. Ibid. March 22, 1918.
24. Known later as the Indiana League of Women Voters.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
of Columbus, Otto L. Klauss, auditor of state, Ralph Todd, of Bluffton, Frank J. Pitner, of Laporte, Chester A. Jewett, Indianapolis, and James S. Royse, of Terre Haute. The work of the quota committee always was attended with more or less secrecy, for it was necessary to consider elements of various kinds in making up county quotas from the state quota. In determining the quotas for the county, "estimates ranging between nine and ten per cent. of the banking re- sources, including building and loan resources, at a one to three ratio (that is 1/3 of building and loan resources in- cluded in banking resources"), were determined upon by the committee. "These quotas were somewhat modified by local county conditions, agricultural and industrial, as the case merited, and were further modified by penalizing where a county had failed to take its 100 per cent. of the First and Second liberty loan allotments."25 It might be added that population also, had some weight in fixing the quotas, as did assessed valuations for taxation.
This shows how carefully the quota committee sought to arrive at fair distributions of the state's allotments to the counties, and what variable factors were considered in ar- riving at the county totals. Now and then some one county would protest against its quota, but always the whisper that the Federal Reserve bank had had a hand in making the quotas, and that patriotism was laying heavy hands on all alike served to make the county chairman in question go back home and start work.
The Third Campaign Opens
The preparations for the Third loan campaign in Indiana had been so elaborate that there was small line of cleavage between the actual beginning of the Loan and the early weeks of preparation. On the night of April 5, Indiana was awake to its war responsibilities to a degree never before attained and patriotic effort of many types began in earnest. That night the state of Indiana, as a whole, prayed for success in battle, both abroad and at home. Watch fires were alight on Hoosier hillsides in many communities and beacon lights from thousands of windows burned determinedly beside the thousands upon thousands of service flags.
25. Notes on Indiana Business Conditions During the War; Leonard L. Campbell, office manager at the State Loan Headquarters.
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
The next day great Liberty bond parades were held in many of the cities and towns as formal openings of the drive. Business almost ceased. In Indianapolis a parade compris- ing thirty-two thousand marchers started the campaign on April 6th.26 Two hundred thousand persons were along the line of March. Fifty thousand were said to have marched at Ft. Wayne,27 while a parade six miles long moved at Evans- ville.28 Reports describing similar parades in other cities throughout the state were printed in newspapers in many counties.
On the Sunday following the opening day, ministers every- where in Indiana urged their congregations to buy bonds. It had been the hope, expressed at Loan headquarters, that In- diana might oversubscribe her allotment in the first ten days and all efforts were directed to that end. From Marcus Sonn- tag, at Evansville, word was received in Indianapolis head- quarters that the southern counties were in readiness. At Hammond, Ind., "Liberty Hall", a public structure, was built by volunteer union workmen in one day as a feature for the loan campaign. At South Bend, red fire was burned on the tops of many buildings as the Loan opened.
The first recorded bond sale of the Third loan had occurred a month before, according to the Indianapolis Star of March 9th. On March 8, a month before the opening of the Loan campaign,-George M. Smith, Jr., of Indianapolis, stepped into the headquarters of the Marion County Woman's Or- ganization in the Lemcke Building, in Indianapolis, and bought the first bond known to have been sold in Indiana for the Third issue. The purchase was made from Mrs. Joseph B. Kealing, chairman of the woman's organization in the capital county.29
James W. Gerard, former ambassador to Germany, spoke to thousands in Tomlinson Hall, Indianapolis, on the night of April 6th, and William Howard Taft spoke at Crawfords- ville on the preceding night. Similar Loan meetings were held throughout the state, with notable speakers, urging the people to oversubscribe the Loan. Community singing was used everywhere to assist in stirring patriotic fervor.
26. Indianapolis papers, April 6 and 7, 1918.
27. Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, April 7, 1918.
28. Evansville Courier, April 7. 1918.
29. Indianapolis Star, March 9, 1918.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
So great was the enthusiasm throughout the state on the day preceding the opening of the Third loan campaign that a statement against overconfidence was issued from State Liberty Loan headquarters for the seventh district. The state- ment read in part :
"There has grown up in Indiana in the last forty-eight hours such a spirit of enthusiasm concerning the successful outcome of the Third Liberty Loan allotment to this state that conditions in many counties are pointing most dangerously toward overconfidence."30
Advertising the Third Loan
The advertising of the opening of the Third Liberty Loan campaign was stressed during the first days. Aviators, "bombing" Indiana cities with Liberty loan material, made their appearances at various points in the state during the campaign. Steeple-jacks climbed to the top of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis, and distributed Loan pamphlets. Pledges of large sums began to be reported from all sections of the state in the early days of the first week of the campaign.
Then, too, there were several advertising features of a general type sent out through various governmental agencies, which had much to do with "putting the Loan on the map." One of the most elaborate of these was the "Jackies" band, from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, near Chicago. This band appeared for the first time in patriotic concerts in many Indiana counties during the Third loan. Colonel Charles A. Garrard, representing the Indiana state publicity head- quarters, conducted this organization and the files of the newspapers of the time show that the "bluejackets" were the most popular thirty men in Indiana during their trip. A similar band from the training station toured the state, under Colonel Garrard's escort in subsequent loans and always was one of the most talked-of single advertising features of the loan campaigns. The speakers bureau always scheduled speeches coincident with the band's appearance, and it was easy to follow the trail of the "jackies" in Indiana by the increased loan interest they stirred up.31
30. Files Third Liberty Loan; circular letter dated April 5, 1918.
31. Through the courtesy of Arthur W. Brady, President of the Union Traction Company ; Robert I. Todd, President of the Indianapolis Traction and Terminal Com- pany, and the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern Traction Company ; Charles L,
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
The methods of attracting attention to the Loan that event- ually were utilized in that campaign were so varied that it may be typical to relate details of one "freak" idea that turned out to be of much value in a publicity way. Through Alex- ander Taggart, head of a baking company in Indianapolis, and an officer in the state bakers' association, arrangements were made to place more than a million and a half small Lib- erty Loan stamps on that many loaves of bread throughout central Indiana. These stamps were distributed by Mr. Tag- gart, at no cost to the government, and thus even the bread that was eaten by the people of Indiana bore to them the con- stantly repeated message: "Buy More Bonds."
First Day's Record Encourages Workers
The picture of the Loan campaign in a smaller Indiana county is found in a letter from George H. James, director of publicity for Clay County, dated April 8, 1918. Since this letter describes conditions attending the Loan drive in the average county of the state it is produced herewith in full :
"Newspapers have given us seven-column headlines. Mov- ing picture shows are running our slides. Billboards in the county are carrying big posters advertising the Loan. Four- minute speakers are addressing all public gatherings. Cir- culars advertising the Loan meetings were distributed to all the churches in the county Sunday. Every meeting in the county is being advertised locally. A farm system electric plant has been mounted on an automobile and moving pictures and stereoptican slides are shown from this automobile, which carries speakers throughout the county to various meetings. Other newspapers in the county, besides those at Brazil, are running material advertising the Loan. Their editors are on our committees. The department store advertisers are de- voting space every day to the Liberty Loan. All ministers announced it Sunday from their pulpits. District No. 8 coal miners held meetings at Brazil and Clay City yesterday and got behind the Loan. The German Aid Society has $500 to buy the first bond in the county. Window cards are in the stores. Arrangements have been made to display the Gov- ernment posters when they arrive. The women have been thoroughly organized, and women reporters are members of
Henry, President of the Indianapolis and Cincinnati Traction Company, and other offi- cials of traction and interurban lines of Indiana, free transportation for the "Jackies" band was provided in their travels to Indiana cities.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
my committee, handling accounts of every meeting. Bonds are already being subscribed for in some townships."32
On April 8th, a dispatch from Muncie said that The Ger- man Benevolent Society, composed of German-born Ameri- cans, bought the first Liberty bond there. Fred A. Klopfer, [mentioned elsewhere in this story of the Loan Campaigns] was a member of the organization and asked for the privi- lege, which was granted by the Loan officials of Delaware County.33
On this same date four counties reported to the state head- quarters that their allotments had been oversubscribed,- Brown, Huntington, Monroe, and Union. The early days of the Loan were so full of claims of success from local com- munities that it was impossible to summarize them.
Dean Barnhart, publicity chairman for Fulton County, wrote state headquarters that the drive in Fulton County would be planned as a "one day effort."
As in the Second loan drive the city of Whiting, in Lake County, claimed the honor of being the first city "over the top" in America. The announcement said the city's quota of $290,000 had been subscribed in forty-eight hours following a mammoth parade on Tuesday night, April 2nd.34
A large part of Jackson County's quota had been subscribed prior to the opening of the Loan, its county chairman, J. H. Andrews, reported on April 5th.35 These were a few instances to show how the state-in both northern and southern coun- ties-was "on its toes" for the beginning of the Third cam- paign.
One of the Liberty Loan black and white maps, which came to be used extensively in the campaigns in Indiana news- papers, appeared in the Indianapolis News of April 9, showing Monroe, Union, Brown, Huntington, Carroll and Decatur Counties were "white"-having reported full subscriptions of their quotas. Decatur County, according to dispatches and news to Loan headquarters, had subscribed $465,000 against a total quota of $370,000 in the first two days of the Loan drive.
The following day fifteen counties in the state had reported oversubscriptions, as follows: Pulaski, Monroe, Union,
32. Correspondence, Third Liberty Loan, letter dated April 8, 1918.
33. Indianapolis News, April 8, 1918.
34. Ibid. April 5, 1918.
35. Indianapolis Star, April 5, 1918.
7-21521
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
Brown, Huntington, Decatur and Carroll in the northern counties ; and Martin, Knox, Warrick, Dubois, Spencer, Switzerland, Crawford and Jefferson in the southern group. Montgomery and Tipton Counties reported to Indianapolis headquarters April 10th, that they had oversubscribed. The national headquarters of the United Mine Workers of America in Indianapolis, subscribed for $390,000 in bonds on the same day.36
The women's teams in Marion County had sold $576,000 in bonds, on the $3,000,000 quota they had set for themselves on that day. Mrs. Frank Hare, the woman's county chairman in Hamilton County, reported to state headquarters, April 11, that the women of the county, with a total quota of $130,000, had sold $171,300. Women of Carroll County, one of the first divisions of the state to take its full allotment, sold $160,000 of the county quota of $400,000, with Mrs. Edward Blythe as woman's chairman. The work of the women alone in Warrick County was enough to insure the quota, according to a dis- patch to The Indianapolis Star, April 10th. Women in Tippe- canoe County in three days sold $125,000 in bonds. Women sold $16,000 in bonds in the city of Mishawaka in one day. By April 10th women of Anderson, under direction of Mary McCullough, had sold $100,000 in bonds. Reports stated that the women of Johnson County on April 12 had sold $193,750 in bonds, whereas the total woman's quota in that county had been placed at only $91,000.
April 11th, nine of the northern and nine of the southern counties had passed their quotas: namely, Pulaski, Carroll, Huntington, Tipton, Montgomery, Union, Decatur, Brown and Monroe of the northern division, and Knox, Martin, Jefferson, Switzerland, Posey, Warrick, Spencer, Dubois, and Crawford, of the southern.
The rural districts of Indiana responded most liberally dur- ing the first two weeks of the Third Liberty Loan campaign. A press report dated April 12 sums up the situation by stating that many counties "wholly rural in type, had gone over the top."37 Among the rural counties leading at this time were Benton, Newton and Jasper in the northwestern part of the state, Ripley in the southeastern part, and Gibson in the south- western section. State Chairman Wade issued a statement at
36. Ibid. April 11, 1918.
37. Ibid. April 12, 1918.
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THE WAR PURSE OF INDIANA
this time in which he paid special tribute to the farmers of the state. He said: "In view of the difficulties of canvassing and the fact that this is the season when the farmer has many other important matters to occupy his time, it is considered by the Indiana committee that the Hoosier farmer has enlisted for the war with something more than mere lip loyalty. The first five counties of the state to oversubscribe their allotments were all agricultural communities. In none of them are to be found any large cities and they are dependent almost en- tirely on farm interests for their wealth. Few reports have been received that might be construed as suggesting a lack of sympathetic support from Indiana farmers, or any lack of determination to put the Third loan across in a substantial oversubscription."38
Southern Counties Go Over
By April 16th, forty of the ninety-two counties had oversub- scribed their quotas. On the following day the sixty-eight northern counties passed the two-thirds mark, having sub- scribed $37,184,000 while the twenty-four southern counties had subscribed for a total of $10,368,000. The total allot- ment for the southern counties was only $9,137,000, and Chairman Sonntag felt greatly elated. He sent the following telegram to Mr. Wade: "Indiana subscriptions $10,368,000. Leading all states in Eighth Federal Reserve District."
On April 18th the northern counties were within fourteen million dollars of their goal. Randolph, Wells and Vermillion Counties, in the northern sixty-eight, "went over" by noon that day. Indiana (the northern counties) was standing in second place among the states of the Seventh Federal District on that date, according to advices from Chicago, based on actual returns to the Federal Reserve Bank. Iowa was lead- ing, but only one-half of the subscriptions reported to the In- dianapolis headquarters had been reported at Chicago. On April 18th, the southern counties of the state, in a dispatch to Indianapolis had oversubscribed their total allotment by more than $1,340,000, and were firmly intrenched in the lead of the other states in the Eighth District.
The woman's committees were working diligently. In the central counties a total of $5,049,500 in bonds had been sold under the direction of Miss Maybelle Pettigrew. In the south-
38. Circular issued April 12, 1918. Files Third Liberty Loan.
.
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INDIANA WORLD WAR RECORDS
ern counties the sales were being conducted by Mrs. Fred Lauenstein, of Evansville, and she reported a total of $1,787,340 of bonds sold. Mrs. Alice Foster McCulloch re- ported that the sales for the northern counties totalled $2,- 037,050. On that date a $5,000 subscription was added to the women's totals from Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter, famous Hoosier author. The women of Marion County alone, under direction of Mrs. Joseph B. Kealing, on that date had sold $2,114,500.39
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