History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920, Part 15

Author: Hooper, Osman Castle, 1858-1941
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Columbus : Memorial Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 702

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920 > Part 15

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

As a result of the visit of Comtesse Madeline de Bryas, who spoke in Memorial Hall, June 27, in the interest of her country, there was formed a Columbus branch of the Ameri- can Committee for Devastated France with the following directors: Mrs. F. O. Johnson, Miss Howard, Mrs. Wm. S. Miller, Mrs. E. M. Poston, Mrs. T. T. Frankenburg, Mrs. Max Goodman, Mrs. S. D. Hutchins, Mrs. Nathan Gumble, Mrs. Fred W. Ateherson, Mrs. A. I. Vorys, Mrs. J. G. Sayre, Mrs. E. J. Wilson, Mrs. Willard Holcomb, Miss Cornelia Lanman and Miss Helen Converse, Beman G. Dawes, John Garber, W. H. Alexander, P. B. Whitsit, Dr. H. C. Brown and Bishop Theodore I. Rees. A bazaar was opened in the Deshler Hotel building and other means were adopted for raising money and securing garments for the sufferers.

Canteen service of the Red Cross established headquarters in the rooms of the Colum- bus Art School, East Broad street, with Mrs. John H. Roys and Mrs. Walter H. Martin in charge, the special work being to meet the troop trains at the Union Station and serve the men with refreshments. Owing to the location of Columbus on the through lines east and west, there were many such trains. The Junior Red Cross in July moved into the Campbell Chittenden home at Broad and Seventeenth streets, where classes in home nursing and first aid were continued and garments and other useful things were made. Here and there playgrounds were equipped for the care of children whose mothers wished to work at the Red Cross centers.

Trained nurses of Columbus early began enlisting for hospital service in the army and navy at home and abroad. These numbered about 150 when in June, 1918, came the Red Cross call for more. Of the 25,000 asked from the whole country Columbus and Franklin connty were asked for 150. A week's campaign, (Prof. J. S. Myers manager), in which the Red Cross Chapter, the hospitals and the physicians assisted, resulted in the enrollment of 203 graduate nurses. At the same time 126 young women enrolled for training in the various hospitals in the city and at the camp hospitals under the supervision of the surgeon general of the United States army.

Later under the direction of Dr. C. F. Clark physicians were organized into a volunteer medical corps. Large meetings were held, not only of local physicians, but of those in the surrounding counties, and hundreds offered their services, the purpose being two-fold-to care for the home situation and to relieve those physicians who were eligible for active service in the army hospitals.

July 1, 1918, was observed as Americanization Day, the program being under the diree- tion of a Chamber of Commerce committee, M. J. Caples chairman. There was a parade in the morning of foreign-born residents-Italians, Greeks, Belgians, French, Danes, Poles. Assyrians. Armenians, Dutch, Hungarians, Finns, Japanese, Russians, Lithuanians, Swiss, Swedes. Rumanians, Norwegians, Austrians, Germans and Serbians-cach group carrying its native flag as well as Old Glory and banners w'th inscriptions as to its nationality. The parade entered the State House grounds, where with a throng estimated at 10,000, of whom 1,000 were foreign-born, there was a band concert, with singing and a mass repetition of the vow of allegiance, led by President Henry A. Williams of the Chamber of Commerce: "I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice to all." In the afternoon at Memorial Hall Ignace Jan Paderewski, distinguished Polish pianist, addressed a large andience chiefly of the foreign-born. Hc

SECOND YEAR OF THE WORLD WAR

praised the loyalty of the latter and the unity of the nation and likened the Polish spirit to that of the Americans. "Keep your country open for the oppressed," he said. "Let them live peacefully in your midst and die quietly in your blessed land. With this, patriotism will come, I assure you."

In the summer a series of community sings was held, some in Franklin Park and Ohio Field. One of these fell on July 14, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile, and there was a crowd of 10,000 at the park. The Barracks band and 550 soldiers from the Barracks; also the Republican Glee Club led by Karl Hoenig, a thousand girls from the Patriotic League and large representations from the Women's Music Club and the church choirs. Alfred Barrington, Robert W. Roberts and Mr. Hoenig led the mass singing of the "Mar- sellaise" and other patriotic songs. Another great crowd gathered at the Barracks to attend the French fete Monday evening, under the auspices of the organization for the Fatherless Children of France. In an imitation French garden there was a program of singing, dancing and instrumental music. Thirty girls' from the Patriotic League sang war songs, and there was dancing by pupils from the School for Girls, while overhead an aviator from the Dayton field circled. The fete netted several thousand dollars for the relief fund.

At Ohio Field, July 21, a crowd of soldiers, aviation students and civilians, estimated at 17,000, sang for victory, Samuel R. Gaines and Willis G. Bowland being added to the list of directors. At the Barracks, in Memorial Hall, in the Masonic Temple and elsewhere these community sings were held weekly, the Rotarians, Knights of Columbus and the Columbus Choral Society, the Elks, the Woodmen of the World, the Democratic Glee Club and others aiding with leaders and voices. The Fourth Liberty Loan drive was inaugurated September 29, with a great "sing" in the Coliseum at the State Fair Grounds and fifteen others in various parts of the county.

Selects continued to be sent by the draft boards to the camps for training. July 16 there was an elaborate farewell for 156 colored men, a meeting at Memorial Hall and a parade to the station. On the 23d the county's largest contingent, 1,026 men, marched to the station, with an escort of honor, and departed for Camp Sherman. With the exception of about 500 men, this exhausted the availables in Class 1 of the 1917 draft. For the in- struction of those who remained and the 1918 registrants, each of the draft boards appointed a committee of eight or ten citizens, and an additional training school was opened in the Y. M. C. A. building, with General John C. Speaks as director.

The reorganized Franklin County Food Administration Committee was active and effi- cient. O. E. Harrison was chairman, Phil S. Bradford secretary, Archard Brandon counsel, D. H. Sowers chairman of the law enforcement committee and E. L. Pease compiler of the fair price list. Rules regarding the sales of foodstuffs, especially sugar, were made and their observance watched. Violators were assessed fines which were paid into the Red Cross treasury, but the willful violators were few, both dealers and consumers accepting the regu- lations in a spirit of patriotism. The July prices for lump coal ran from $5.80 for Hocking to $6.45 for West Virginia splint.

The War Chest Committee met periodically and made appropriations from the fund according to the plan announced prior to the solicitation. It also sent to the company fund of each unit in which there were Franklin county boys an amount equal to $10 per capita to be used in securing those comforts the War Department could not furnish. The committee joined with similar committees elsewhere in the creation of a national bureau for procuring information on efficiency of administration, possible duplication of effort and worthy appeals for assistance.

The Federal Government's call for a student nurse reserve found Columbus eager to serve. A recruiting station was opened in the Deshler Hotel, with Mrs. C. C. Corner in charge and a publicity committee went to work with the result that in the allotted time the enrollment of 111 young women to train for the service, either in civilian or military schools, had been exceeded. The need for nurses continuing, this was supplemented in October and November by a house-to-house canvass of the county to make a record of all available persons. Mrs. C. C. Corner, who had been elected secretary of the social service bureau of the Chamber of Commerce, vice R. L. Bondy, called to military duty, was secretary of the committee, and the work was done largely through the organization of women that Mrs. Linus B. Kauffman had built up, with representatives in every ward and township of the county.

HISTORY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

In the summer the Knights of Columbus dedicated their recreation building at the Colum- bus Barraeks, with short addresses by representatives of that Catholic order, the military and the Y. M. C. A. The Elks, the Columbus branch participating, erected a $10,000 com- munity house at Camp Sherman. Miss Jean Hamilton, representing the colored Y. W. C. A., began the organization of colored women and girls for war work, headquarters being es- tablished at 495 East Long street. Out of this it was hoped would grow a movement for a permanent Y. W. C. A. A school for staff workers in war community service was held at the Great Southern Hotel, in September, under the direction of Mrs. Eva W. White, of Boston, workers from other places being addressed by Mrs. J. L. V. Bonney, Mrs. T. B. Sellers, Mrs. W. P. Anawalt, Mrs. C. W. Harper and others of the successful Columbus organizers of young women. A third institute for the training of workers in the relief of soldiers' families was held in October at Ohio State University under the direction of Dr. J. E. Hagerty.

Meanwhile the Red Cross workers continued unceasingly to turn out hospital supplies. At the annual meeting of the directors of the chapter in October, A. T. Seymour appeared as the successor of Mrs. M. J. Caples, removed from the city. The official staff then in- eluded: Mrs. W. T. Wells, chairman of the women's work; Mrs. C. L. Ireland, chairman of outside working units; Mrs. Edgar B. Kinkead, chief of the bureau of information; Mrs. F. N. Sinks assistant. In the civilian relief department Miss Ann Evans assumed charge of the workers, succeeding Mrs. Lois Olcott, who had served temporarily, vice Miss Covert, resigned on account of illness. Later, when Mrs. Ireland was called to Washington, Mrs. W. D. Hamilton took up her work here. E. L. MeCune, chairman of the military relief com- mittee, in his report, highly complimented both the women workers and the Junior Red Cross. Their work made it possible to ship in the period from May 1, 1917, to September 30, 1918, 754 cases containing 555,524 articles, besides many garments for the refugees in Belgium and articles for the convelescents at Camp Sherman.

For the canteen workers a hut was built on the bridge inside the Union Station, and there night and day, refreshments were served by willing hands to the trainloads of soldiers passing through to camps or ports of embarkation and to those who were returning, shat- tered, to hospital or home. But, alas! these were not all; there were also silent heroes in their coffins, to whom no further service could be rendered. The lumber for the hut was donated and the hut was built without charge by the Builders' and Traders' Exchange, and the money for the refreshment supplies was paid out of the War Chest, the services of the workers completing a beautiful circle of grateful appreciation of the men called to mili- tary duty.

In compliance with the call for men for the army there was, August 24, the registration of about 500 young men who had reached the age of 21 since June 5, 1917. Preparations were at the same time begun for the new draft of men between the ages of 18 and 45. E. W. Swisher was appointed chairman of the Franklin county draft commission and he ap- pointed as a committee to assist: Richard Lloyd, John J. Joyce, Harry C. Arnold and George Van Loon, members of the board of elections, H. Sage Valentine, Walter A. Pfeifer, Arthur J. Thatcher, Wm. A. Ginder, Judge Homer Z. Bostwick and James A. Allen, with Joseph A. Klunk as secretary. The election booths in the various preeinets and townships werc manned by volunteers, as before, election officers and others, and on September 12. the registration was made, 37,938 men in the county, between the ages of 18 and 21 and 31 and 45, willingly offering their services. As usual, Columbus and Franklin county ex- ceeded the estimate, and the per capita cost, 48 cents for cach registered man, was officially reported the smallest for any large city in the State. The questionnaire and classification process was in progress when it was interrupted by the outbreak of influenza and pneumonia at Camp Sherman and in Columbus.

In the latter part of September there began an organized effort to transfer labor from non-essential tasks to those of war. The construction of the great storage warehouses of the Federal Government, east of the city, was lagging and there was other need of united effort to produce those things and do those things required for the winning of the war. A community war labor board was appointed consisting of Rev. Timotheus Lehmann, pastor of St. John's Evangelical Protestant church, chairman; C. J. Tucker, secretary of the Columbus Federation of Labor, and A. H. Thomas, superintendent of the Buckeye Steel Castings Co. The board sent out questionnaires to all employers of labor, asking to what extent they were

SECOND YEAR OF THE WORLD WAR

engaged in war work, the number and kind of workers and the character of the business, with a view to an amicable agreement as to the release of man power. So far as possible it was asked that women be substituted for men as clerks, elevator operators, etc., and there was a request for the discontinuance of many non-essential occupations such as shoe-shin- ing and pop-corn-vending. There was a patriotic response. Absenteeism in Columbus plants doing war work was cut 50 per cent., men shifted from non-essential to essential tasks, em- plovers readjusted their business so as to give the needed release and much personal service was abandoned, the city sent to the warehouse site its force of men for street cleaning and refuse collection and misdemeanants who would otherwise have been sent to the workhouse were given the chance to do war work instead. For weeks the employment bureaus were busy placing the new labor to get the best results.

To aid in eliminating non-war construction work Governor Cox appointed the following committee: C. L. Dickey, president of the Northern Savings Bank Co .; Frank L. Packard,

View in Broad Street. Looking East from Front Street ( Memorial to Soldiers in Center)

architect, and Edwin F. Wood, secretary of the Ohio State Savings Association. Operat- ing in harmony with boards in other counties, it promulgated rules limiting to $1000 new construction in rural districts, prohibiting it in cities and limiting alterations and repairs to a cost of $2,500. In thirty days building operations in Columbus and Ohio were reduced to a minimum, all passed upon and permitted.

The Fourth Liberty Loan Drive was for the sale of $13,070,550 bonds in Franklin county. The committee was organized with Fred Lazarus, jr., chairman, and Edwin Buchanan as secretary. Teams were organized as before, with the following captains: F. W. Schumacher, James A. Maddox, Max Morehouse, H. B. Arnold, E. J. Goodman, D. N. Postlewaite, J. J. Stevenson, W. H. Martin, Eugene Gray, E. P. Tice, Walter A. Jones, F. O. Schoedinger, F. W. Braggins, Frank J. Macklin and Andrew Timberman. The news had come of the death of forty-two Franklin county boys on the field of battle, and the campaign was called the Atonement drive. A beautiful memorial of concrete was built in Broad street facing High street, on which was a tablet inscribed with the names of the fallen as follows:

HISTORY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

Frank O'Connor

Herbert E. Hathaway

Perry W. Crabtree

Richard Nineheart

Clifton Bow

Arthur J. Kiefer

C. L. Robinson

Ernest L. MeCoy

James Roland Avery

Verner Douglas

James E. Fisher

Carey R. Evans

Kenneth R. Failing

A. J. Ortman

Raymond W. Pierce

Roy Roriek Murphy

Carl Adolph Bohlman

John A. Strange

Fred Ebert

Norman Sharits

John S. Deming

Hoppy Kelley Fraley Norman W. Hillock Harry V. Hammond

Herman C. Slater

Martin O'Callaghan

Jerry A. Brown

Fred W. Norton

Riehard N. Gleich

Charles Bloee

Erwin I. Danford

Henry W. Powell

G. Estle

Harry O. Watkins

Lloyd F. Sehott

John Donnelly

Owen V. Carr

Earl C. Bates

Lawton B. Evans, jr.

Howard C. Paschall

Robert E. Goodykoontz

Michael Higgins

That these soldiers "shall not have died in vain," the people of the county were asked to make subseriptions to the loan. On Saturday, September 28, Lieutenant John Philip Sousa and his Great Lakes band of 300 pieces eame to Columbus, thrilling all with their massive music. as they marehed the streets. Abram 1. Elkus, former United States Ambass- ador to Turkey, spoke in the evening at Memorial Hall, and the great band played. On Monday, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, at the invitation of the committee, eame and spoke from a platform at the base of the memorial to a great erowd that gathered in Broad street and braved the rain to hear him. He spoke also to a thousand bond salesmen gathered at luncheon in the Masonic Temple. With the impetus of these exceptional demonstrations, the committee and teams took up the work Tuesday morning, and carried it to a successful conelusion in five days. At the Saturday night meeting of the solicitors at the Masonie Temple, it was announeed amid great enthusiasm that the eity and county had again gone "over the top," the total then being $16,929.450. Resolving that they would inaugurate the eustom of lifting the hat whenever they passed the memorial to the dead soldiers, the solieitors adjourned. The subscribers numbered 55,143.

The Federal Government school of military aeronauties at Ohio State University was closed August 31, the work that had been done in this and other institutions being eoneen- trated at fewer places. Announcement was made of the Government's purpose to establish at this and other institutions of learning a Students' Army Training Corps, under the regu- lations of which young men of 18 years eould attend college and at the same time be prepared for military service. The corps was to be organized by voluntary induction under the selective serviee act, instead of by enlistment; the student would thus heeome a soldier in the United States army. subject to military discipline and with the pay of a private, $30 a month, housing, subsistence and instruction to be furnished; he would receive military in- struction and be kept under observation and assigned to duty, when there was need, according to his qualifieations. This proved an alluring offer. Registration at the University was heavy and on October 1. about 2,000 young men had made application for admission to the corps. As fast as their physical fitness could be determined the young men were admitted the the barracks on the University grounds or to other buildings that were to be so used. As far as military requirements would allow, each member of the corps was permitted to pursue his chosen course of study.

A Students' Army Training Corps was also established at Capital University and simi- larly conducted. The enrollment was 54.

September brought another unique demonstration of the unity of the people for the win- ning of the war. The Federal Fuel Administration requested that as a means of saving gasoline that more might be sent over seas to the army, all pleasure riding and needless automobile driving be abandoned on Sunday. There was general compliance, the streets of the city on Sunday, September 1, being almost as elear of automobiles as they were before such vehieles came into vogue. The few that ventured out had to run the gantlet of the street urchins' cries of "Slaeker!" The second Sunday was a repetition of the first, except that it was found necessary to permit essential service cars to be. run, and such were properly plaearded on the wind-shield. For the five Sundays in September and the first two in Oeto- ber the ban remained on Sunday riding and when it was lifted, there was official assurance

SECOND YEAR OF THE WORLD WAR

that every one who had sacrificed his pleasure or convenience had added something to the certainty of victory.

The epidemic of influenza which spread over the country in the autumn reached Camp Sherman in the latter half of September. It raged for more than a month causing nearly 1,100 deaths. The sickness of sons or other relatives called many Columbus people to the Camp and to Chillicothe where accommodations already were inadequate. For the better accommodation of visitors, Columbus club women made an appeal for gifts of mat- tresses, bedding, towels and supplies of various kinds. Gifts poured in and on the 12th of October seven trucks filled with the offerings left the United Commercial Travelers' build- ing on Goodale street for the camp. The Red Cross also sent supplies and scores of women, nurses and nurses' assistants offered their services. From the Volunteer Medical Service Corps, Dr. C. F. Clark, chairman, was able to send a number of physicians for civilian service in Boston and elsewhere. The emergency call for face masks, pillow cases, towels, etc., was met by the Red Cross workers.

And while this work of relief was going on the epidemic stole into Columbus and put everybody on the defensive. Following the lead of the State Department of Health, the Columbus authorities on October 13, when 516 cases and a score of deaths had been re- ported, ordered the closing of schools, colleges, Sunday schools, theaters and motion picture houses, prohibited public and private dances in halls and hotels and all loitering about saloons and pool rooms, requesting also the abandonment of all public assemblages and the closing of churches and lodges. Ohio State University, in compliance with the state orders, had closed on the preceding Friday. Observance of the municipal orders was general, the request being as effective as the prohibition, but it was not till October 30 that signs of an early mastery of the disease appeared. Then the number of reported cases was 3,186, while the deaths totaled 265, of which 49 occurred at the Columbus Barracks. The first lifting of the health board ban was on November 3, when churches were permitted to hold services, if they were short and good ventilation maintained. In many of the churches appeals for votes favorable to the prohibition amendment to the State Constitution were made, that being the first and only opportunity for such appeal, as public meetings had been prohibited dur- ing the period of the epidemic. The disease continued its ravages, however, as related else- where, and it was not until the summer of 1919 that normal conditions were reached.

On Friday, September 6, at the suggestion of Governor Cox, addressed to every com- munity in Ohio, the daily sounding of taps from the west front of the State House was begun. Choice fell on the hour of 4:30 p. m., that, making allowance for the difference in time, most nearly corresponding with the hour at which the call would daily be sounded in France. "To us here at home," said the Governor, "what more beautiful sentiment can be imagined than the consciusness that, as the cadences rise and fall, somewhere within the shadow of death and under the pall of battle, our beloved ones are thinking of us." The first sounding here was made an impressive ceremony. In the presence of 10,000 people prayer was offered by Rev. Irving Maurer, of the First Congregational church. Captain D. M. Hall, Commander of the Ohio G. A. R., introduced H. S. Warwick as master of ceremonies, who read the Governor's proclamation of taps and General Pershing's address at the tomb of Lafayette. Adjutant General Roy E. Layton read a telegram from Pershing, saying: "To know that taps will be sounded tonight from the State House and every court house in Ohio is a touch- ing thought and brings us very near in spirit to the people at home who are supporting us so splendidly." A male octette sang to the tune of taps these lines by C. S. Anderson :

Lord of Hosts, Hear our prayer- Keep our sons over there In Thy care; Bring them home, Victory-crowned, Lord of Hosts !

There was singing of Allied airs by the throng, led by Karl Hoenig, and the bugler sounded taps. Governor James M. Cox, former Governor James E. Campbell, Mayor George J. Karh and Colonel Tyree Rivers, commandant at Camp Sherman, sat on the platform

HISTORY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

during the ceremonies. Two companies of soldiers from the eamp afterwards gave an exhi- bition drill in Broad street. The sounding of taps was maintained daily during the war.

The American Protective League, in charge of Robert E. Pfeiffer, special assistant United States District Attorney, during the period of the war, was aided by about 150 volun- teer investigators. About 250 German men and 300 German women were under constant supervision by the league. They could not leave Columbus or go from one part of the eity to another withont a permit, and thus insidious propaganda and spying were reduced to a minimum.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920, Part 15

Author: Hooper, Osman Castle, 1858-1941 Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Columbus : Memorial Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 702

Author: Hooper, Osman Castle, 1858-1941
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Columbus : Memorial Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 702