USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > History of the activities of the people of Lackawanna County in the world war : under the supervision of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense and Committee of Public Safety > Part 11
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Friends, too, of those who had given their lives to their Country, were given the privilege of planting young treos in com- memoration of individuals.
On Memorial Day, 1920, in Nay Aug Park, the scene of such noteworthy mass meetings during the war, this Grove was dedicated with services fitting to the dignity of its purpose.
The same plan has been followed, varying in detail, in almost all the towns of the County; and nearly every Church and most of the high schools have by this time tablets in commemoration of those who were lost in the service. Some of them, too, have permanent monumental records of all who were in the service.
Four Minute Speakers.
Early in the war that nost original and effective organ-
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Each
ization, the Bureau of Four Minute speakers, got in to action. speaker of this Brreen certainly did his whole duty by the Couse It was necessary to lay before the people at large now master every week -- the war, and the movements for promoting the war, wore a quickly changing kaleidoscope. It was not enough to tell the people through the newspapers what the Government, or the State, or the Committee of Public Safety wanted done or proposed to do next. They must read it; and they must hear it, too. People could not
go to any evening performance of any sort during the whole war -- not any where any evening -- without listening to four minutes' plain, sincere, able, ofton eloquent, exposition of the war subject at the moment uppormost. Among the subjects spoken of by the Four Minute Speakers was included, of course, all campaigns for funds -- loan campaigns and war work campaigns.
Each speaker of the Bureau always devoted two whole even- ings a week to speaking, covering several theatres during the even- ing. And often a speaker was on duty several or all of the even- ings during the week. The speakers were given new assignments weekly, so that habitual audiences heard new talent and the speakers spoke to all sorts of audiences. The Director placed subject mat- tor and topics in the hands of the speakers, who prepared their own addresses.
The importance of this method of publicity can not be over-estimated; and it was carefully organized and perfectly done in Lackawanna County.
The first Director of the Bureau was Mr. John M. Harris, who later became Director of the Four Minute Speakers' Bureau of Northeastern Penns ivania. He was succeeded in Lackawanna County by Mr. James E. Davis. Within a month Mr. Davis went to an officers' training camp, where he contracted pneu monia. He returned home
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just as the war ended, lingered a few days, and died -- lemonted as one of the finest young men of Scranton.
Mr. Walter L. Schantz succeeded Mr. Davis, on the latter's departure for camp, and was Director of the Bureau until 1 its disbanding. All three of these gentlemen were well known lawyers. The following is the list of the speakers of the Bureau in the City and the chairmen in the other towns of the County. Mr. D. G. Brown, Moosic, Mr. Homer D. Carey, Jermyn, Mr. Paul M. Dzwonchyk, Mayfield, Mr. J. Norman Gelder Carbondale, Mr. Joseph Gilroy, Peckville, Mr. Joseph Hartfield, Throop, Dr. H. E. Jones, Dickson City, Mr. Michael Melvin, Vandling, Mr. E. T. Philbin, Archbold, Mr. William Ropp, Old Forge, Mr. T. J. Rogan, Olyphant, Reverend J. M. Smoniter, Jessup, Mr. H. E. Spencer, Dunmore, Mr. Tho as P. Thomas, Taylor, Mr. Joseph Wilce, Simpson
Seranton -- Mr. Elmer C. Adair, Mr. H. S. Alworth, Mr. Walter S. Buck, Mr. Joseph Burall, Mr. Theodore Bird, Profes- sor M. J. Costello, Mr. John P. Durkan, Mr. David J. Davis, Mr. T. A. Donahoe, Mr. M. R. Denman, Professor Dayton Ellis, Mr. Frank French, Mr. John Groiner, Professor James R. Hughes, Mr. P. S. Parkins, Dr. Charles F. Hoban, Mr. Meyer Kabatchnick, Mr. S. &. Kaplan, Mr. Delmar Lindley, Mr. W. B. Landis, Mr. Fred W. Lidstone, Mr. H. P. Lynch, Mr. Elmer Larson, Mr. H. W. Mumford, Mr. Richard Manning, Mr. W. G. Mosor, Mr. Lester Mann Mr. George L. Beck, Professor D. W. Phillips, Mr. A. G. Ruther- ford, Mr. Robert Silverstein, Professor John S. Seeley, Mr. Maurice Suravitz, Mr. James B. Sickler, Mr. M. R. Stephens, Mr. Leslie Simons, Mr. Harold A. Seragg, Mr. F. K. Tracey, Mr. Daniel Williams, and the Reverend R. S. Walker.
Besides covering the work regularly assigned it, the Bureau of Four Minute Sneakers was of great assistance in providing speakers for special occasions all over the County and the adjoining counties, when Major Penman asked for them. They spoko, too, in the Churches and in the schools, and at industrial plants and at the mines, at flag raisings, mass meetings, fairs, and socials. They were
busy men, these Pour Minute Speakers, and they did their duty; for
many words are necessary to bring about a single act. Two hundred thousand people hoard their call to duty -- a few once, thousands a few times, a hundred thousand week after week for over a year.
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Churches.
From the pulpits and altars of all the Church's, patrio- tism, that is of lofty morality and that which is materiall; ntac- tical, was continually preached, b, those to whom we must listen. Clergymen themselves vere active members of the committees of public safety or active colleagues of the committees. Literature on live subjects of the moment was always sent to the Clorgy; and hardly a Sunday passed that announcements or sermons were not given to the people through the words of Priest and Preacher This as a mighty influence.
School Systems.
Through the fifty thousand school children of the County message after message was sent into the homes and spread broadcast. There was no dearth of printed matter. Lengthy mailing lists wore in the hands of the Committee. AZ1 superintendents of schools and principals received every item of publicity material; and they passed it down weekly or even daily to the teachers of the pupils, so modified to suit the intelligence of the grades to whom the mes- I sage was bo be delivered.
Newspaper Publicity.
The newspaper clippings carefully preserved by Miss Mullen and her assistants in the war office speak volumes -- they are a history of the war in themselves. More, they demonstrate how much reportorial ability, printer's ink, and newspaper space were de- voted by our local papers to fighting the war here at home. Be-
i sides giving the news from the actual seat of warfare, column after colum was written and printed daily on the activities engaged in
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by the different departments of the Committee of Public Safety.
Press information was of two kinds -- that coming from the central offices of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense in Philadelphia and that derived from war ovements strictly local. Often the two were similar in subject matter. At first the bul- letins coming from Philadelphia were merely handed to the papers, and were printed or not, as seemed best to the editorial department. The local matter was prepared by Mr. John F. Ruddy, publicity manager of the local Committee.
After Mr. Ruddy's departure to the army, followed soon af- ter by the departure of Executive Secretary Stevenson, the writer appointed Mr. Anthony H. Gill of the Seranton Times to this very im- ! portant position. He occupied the position of Publicity Menager until the end of the war and thereafter for three months of the recon- struction period.
Mr. Gill prepared all his articles in the war office, con- ferring with the Executive Secretary; and never handed to the news- papers a sheet of press information that had come from Philadelphia. His method was to rewrite it == give it local color -- make it con- form to the Lackawanna County point of view. His own report covers the whole ground.
Scranton, Pa., December 2, 1918.
Mr. Eugene H. Fellows Executive Secretary Committee of Public Safety, Scranton, Pa.
My dear Mr. Fellows:
I submit the following statement in regard to the Bureau of Information.
The work of this Bureau for the month of November, as well as for all other months, has been to keep posted on all matters pertaining to the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and other branches of the service; and to give to those persons who call at the office any information concerning war measures that it has been able to obtain. The principal work of disseminating the infor-
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mation that is important to the friends and relatives of persons in the service has been done through the newspapers, however, in articles written by this bureau and furnished to the papers, in which was pointed out those things that were of local interest. In these articles the bureau made it a point to localize the matter that came to the office of the Executive Secretary.
3
Much of the activity this onth was devoted to the United Var Work Campaign which was conducted in this district the week of November 11th to 18th. Many articles paving the way for the drive were furnished to the papers before the opening day of the campaign. During the campaign we also took an active part in the writing of articles designed to boom the drive, be- sides writing the news of the drive from day to day. That the campaign was a success in the Scranton District, composed of Lackawanna, Pike, Wayne, Susquehanna and Monroe Counties, i S provon by the fact that the District subscribed $867,322.1., while its quota was only 700,900.
Many stories were also written and furnished to the local papers to boom the public curb markets which have proved a huge success in this city and Dunmore. We made it a point to keep the public posted on each of the three market days of the week as to the prices that prevailed in the market; and we think that the printing of these prices had much to do with the success of the market.
The bureau makes it a point to keep in touch with the Red Cross, the War Camp Community Service, the market master, the United States Employment "Service, the Four Minute Men, the pro- motors of Victory Sings, the War Garden Committee, the War Labor Board, the Committee of Waste Reclamation, the Food Admin- istration, the Fuel Administrator, the Department of Construction and Materials, and all other branches that are in anway re- lated to war work, for the purpose of printing all the news and securing all the publicity they need.
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Te find that the newspapers in the County have at all times been ready to give us whatever space and prominence our news deserves, and we have secured a large am unt of ublicity for the various branches of war activity. The ather that is sent out by the Philadelphia offices is rewri ten so as to give it local color, and we have been able to secure wide publicity for matters pertaining to the Students' Army Training Corps, Soldiers' Insurance and Allotments, the sending of Christmas packages, the need for men in Officers' Training Schools, food and fuel regulations, the placing and lifting of bans, and all var matters gonerally.
Ve che mow engaged in giving the same publicity to all matters pertaining to readjustment and reconstruction, whether they emanate from Headquarters at Philadelphia or from the local office of the Executive Secretary.
1
Yours truly,
(Signed) Anthony H. Gill.
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In oxpressing to Colonel aties their gratification at the methods pursued by the war office of his Committee, which they did without qualification, citing them as examples for other coun- ties, Chairman George Wharton Pepper and Executive Director Lewis S. Sadler commented particularly pron the plan followed by ME. Gill in placing war information and propagande before the public.
Bureau of Information.
During the war and for more than a year afterwards, the central war office was a bureau of miscellaneous information. Dis- charged soldiers and the relatives of soldiers wanted both informa- tion and service. Many a boy with a real or fancied claim against the Government found nere advice and help; and many, where it was possible had their discharges hastened or their claims responded to through the efforts of the office of the Executive Secretary. Many questions of local importance, economic, industrial, social, mili- tary, governmental, had arisen during the war, and people came to the war offices and expected to find answers there. Miss Helen
Mullen had occupied the positions in quick succession of stenographer, private secretary, and secretary in these offices; and made a pro- found impression upon the conduct of the business of the offices. She had with foresight carefully preserved every paper, document letter relating to war work, insisted on their retention, filed them methodically, and was at all times ready with information on the most varied subjects. And she was even more ready to give her time and attention to the relatives of soldiers who needed assistance. Besides, October 1st, November 1st, and December 1st, 1918, very com- prehensive reports were compiled, largely at her suggestion and through her efforts, which were forwarded to Mr. Sadler. He com-
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mended this procedure so highly that he proposed to have the committees of the other counties make similar reports "based on the model of Lackawanna County." The following are the indexos of those three reports.
Pennsylvania Council of National Defense and Committee of Public Safety Lackawanna County. Report of Executive Secretary October 1, 1918.
The Executive Committee Page 1 Fourth Liberty Loan Drive 15
Co-operation of Men and Women 1 Construction and Materials 16
Bureau of Food A ministration 2 Employment Bureau 17
Food Conservation 5 Americanization
19
Division of Food Production
War Camp Community Service
20
Public Service Resorve
Fuel Administration
Bureau of Farm Labor
9
Four Minute Men
22
Var Gardens
10
Red Cross
22
Curb Markets
11
The Canteen
23
Bureau of Information
12 Public Meetings
23
The War Census
13
Students' Army Training Corps24
Finance 24
Bureau of Registration
13
Executive Secretary 25
Roll of Honor
15
November 1, 1918.
Introduction
Page 1
Construction and Materials 5
Executive Committee
7 Employment Bureau
10
Co-operation of Men and women
1 Four Minute Men 10
Bureau of Food Administration
Red Cross 10
Bureau of Farm Labor
The Epidemic 12
Curb Markets
Finance
42
Bureau of Information
Executive Secretary
47
The War Census
Reconstruction
43
Fourth Liberty Loan Drive
December 1, 1918.
Introduction Page 1
Americanization 33
Bureau of Food Administration
War Camp Community Service 37
Department of Food Conservation 2
Pour Minute Men 59
Department of Food Production
Red Cross 42
Public Service Reserve
5
The Canteen 4.2
Bureau of Tarm Labor
8 Public Meetings 4.4
War Gardens
10
Education 14
Curb Markets
16
United War Work Campaign 46
Bureau of Information
20
War Savings Stamps
Roll of Honor
22
Boys' Industrial Association
Liberty Loan Drives
24
Lackawanna County's Contri-
Construction and Materials
27
bution to the War 48
Employment Bureau
28
The Housing Problem 49
Community Labor Board 30
Vocational Education
30
Conclusion 83
46 46
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All these papers and reports and statistics and letters and general information either prepared by or preserved by Miss Mullen are still oxtant, and this History of the Activities of the people of Lackawanna County during the World War has been written with those papers and the papers of Chairman Louis A. Watres. as its sources.
Chapter VIII. Local Government -- The Epidemic.
Politics.
During the war elections were held, political campaigns were conducted, and office holders were continued or changed just as at all other times. Truly American, men could oppose each other at the polls and immediately join hands in furthering war activities. i
1.
Provisional Regiment.
In place of the Thirteenth Regiment, a first-rate provision al regiment of the National Guard was organized, under the command of Colonel Leander H. Conklin.
Home Defense Police.
The Volunteer Home Defense Police was a very loose organi- sation, consisting really of the members of the Committee of Public Safety throughout the County, who stood ready to perform guard duty over industries, coal breakers, and water sheds. It was not called into action as an organization. Its superintendent was Mr. Floyd D. Beemer.
Police Authorities.
The police, constables, State Constables, and health offi- cers performed their duty up until nearly the end of the war without any thing occurring worthy of comment. Then came the disaster; and our governmental or police machinery did not meet the crisis.
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Draft Boards.
The County was divided up into ten draft districts, five of these districts being in the City and five outside. The chair- men of the local draft boards were as follows: City of Scranton.
Division No. 1, Dr. Herman Bessey. Division No. 2, Dr. J. Norman White. Division No. 3, John T. Lewis. Division No. 4, Dr. Albert Kolb. Division No. 5, Benjamin S. Phillips.
Lackawanna County.
Board No. 1, Dr. D. S. Watson, Moosic, Board No. 2, Dr. John J. Price, Olyphant, Board No. 3. Dr. Thomas Monie, Archbald, Board No. 4, Dr. F. C. Leonard, Carbondale, Board No. 5, Mr. J. R. Schlager, Taylor.
Influenza.
It is very hard to explain the attitude of the people of Lackawanna County toward the epidemic of influenza which first made its appearance in September, 1918, was hideously virulont during October and November and continued in milder form during the entire winter. No people could possibly have been more active in their patriotism, in their war effectiveness, than the people of our County. Too, their war effectiveness did not diminish perceptioly during the time that the disease was sweeping the County. But this efficiency did not seem to extend to taking public recautions
against the spread of the epidemic. It seemed as if they did not want to prepare for it, as if they did not or wo Id not believe that it would creep into their towns -- or they seemed to be fatalists, to believe that it would attack them or not, regardless of any pre- cautions that might be taken. Officials who had done most important
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service during the war would not take measures to prepare for the coming of influenza. "Against stupidity even the gods fight unvictorious."
Dr. J. C. Reifsnyder was and still is State Health Officer for Lackawanna and other cointies. When influenza commenced to be prevalent in other parts of the country, Dr. Reifsnyder was fully aware of the danger to our inhabitants should it reach the towns of Lackawanna Valley. He was also alive to the probability of its taking root in this community; and since he had in the past made a close study of the sanitary conditions here, and had made effort after effort to have them inproved and corrected, he served notice in plenty of time on all borough officials that their towns were menaced by a danger greater than war. His prediction was justified by the event; and had the health officers of the boroughs paid more regard to Dr. Reifsnyder's warnings, and had they obeyed his instructions, a far smaller number of lives would have been lost.
Scranton.
In the City of Seranton the stronger organiza ion of the Bureau of Health gave opportunities for withstanding the ravages of disease in better ways than in the boroughs. The first town in which influenza became of great danger was Throop. In no ti e it spread into Scranton and every governmental agoney was put into operation to save lives and to save homes. Dr. Longstreet, Super- intendent of the Bureau of Health, had at his disposal all the health officers, the whole police department, all the hospitals, and several emergency hospitals that were established; including the Scranton City Armory where many patients were cared for. Dur- ing the epidemic in Scranton Mayor Alexander ". Connell devoted all of his time and exerted all of his ower to protect the people from
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the disease. "e closed every place of meeting of every kind, in- cluding the Churches and the schools, insisted that there be no so- cial gatherings, no large funerals; and of course insisted that the saloons be locked up.
The Protection of the People.
The epidemic had not yet reached its critical stage when it. appeared proper for the Committee of Public Safety to exert its 1 strength for the protection of the people. There is, of course, under our governmental organization, no executive authority for a county like there is for the city and borough. There is no central office or official to whom boroughs and townships can look for in- structions or directions or for combined policy. True, in regard to matters of health and sanitation, the borough authorities of Lackawanna County should have looked to Dr. Reifsnyder. The bur- gesses and councils have never looked to the health officer; and the boards of health and health officers of the boroughs have not generally recognized him as an official with power to act and com- mand. As a physician and as State Health Officer, it was now ab- solutely essential for him to be in his office, giving doctors and laymen professional rather than governmental instructions, and for him to be in constant communication with Harrisburg.
War Office.
Because it was a time of war, the County did have at this particular moment an office and officials, without governmental authority but with vast moral strength, the Committee of Public 1 Safety. The Executive Secretary, called upon for help by Dr. Reif-
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snyder, left the central war office in charge of his assistant, and spent all of the time during the critical stages of the epi- demic in the seventeen towns of the Valley outside of Scranton. When Chairman George Wharton Pepper sent instructions to Colonel Watres to put the whole strength of the Committee of Public Safety into the fight against the spread of the disease, the Executive Secretary could not be found for two days -- he was in the northern end of the County bolstering up the political government in its measures to combat influenza. He had, already, since the County Superintendent of Schools did not think he had authority to do so himself, closed the country schools, he had asked the clergymen out- side of the City to have no meetings of their congregationsi, he had urgently requested the burgesses and councils of all the towns of the County to allow no public meetings and to arrest hotel keepers who did not obey Dr. Royer's order; and he had called into action to : assist him every member of the Committee of Public Safety and every influential citizen of the County.
Borough Officials.
The experience of the Executive Secretary was much the same in every one of the seventeen towns in the Valley outside of Scranton. The borough officials were many of them simply lost -- dazed. Men Who would not have been afraid of German bullets or gas, feared this insidious, deadly, invisible contagion. In almost all the towns men rose to the occasion from amongst the courageous and public-spirited citizens -- the Honorable Frank R. Coyne in Old Forge, J. Norman Gelder and the Reverend Warren L. Steeves in Carbondale, Dr. and Mrs. P. F. Lonergan in Dickson City, and Burgess James McNulty in Throop are only a few of the hundreds that responded to the call. Emer-
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gency hospitals were established, amateur nurses were found, the foreign born people packed together eight in a room were separated, and some kind of a fight was made to prevent the disease from attack- ing all the people. The main fault was that preparation had not been made in the past to meet such a visitation. In some of the towns there was no money to be devoted to this emergency, in others warring factions that had forgotten their animosities in war work seemed to renew them in argument as to just how to fight disease. Maybe the most embarrassing difficulty was in persuading one town, well equipped with hospitals, to allow patients from a more unfor- tunate contiguous town to be carried through the streets to the hos- pitals. This was in some measure a display of flat cowardice, and in some measure a display of selfishness, in fear that the hospitals might be filled with people from outside the town, leaving no room for the people for whom the hospitals had been established.
It may be that in all the activities of the Committee of Public Safety, in doing what it could to render the epidemic of in- fluenza less disastrous, it performed its greatest service. Practi- cally all the members of this wide organization did their share to- ward fighting this blind fight. It was no small disaster. About four hundred and fifty service men from Lackawanna County lost their lives at war in eighteen months. During about six weeks seventeen hundred men, women, and children of Lackawanna County died of influ- enza and pneumonia.
On November 30, 1918, the following concise report -- long ยท enough, indddd -- was sent to Chairman Pepper, under his instructions, by the Executive Secretary.
The number of reported cases offinfluenza in Lackawanna County, including Scranton, up to the close of November 30th, was 10,490. A reliable estimate, on good knowledge, of the real number of cases is about 30,000. The number of deaths
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