WEST VIRGINIA
There were “hot times in the old town” of Hinton, West Virginia, in good part by reason of the activities of one man, the local Chief, who, for some time was cook, captain and mate of the Nancy brig. Local disloyalty induced him to go to Washington and ask government help, and the League organization followed. One pro-German in Hinton had the Kaiser’s picture on the wall. It is not there now. The head of this family was a locomotive engineer. The Chief notified railroad officials not to allow him to handle any troop trains. Another engineer expressed the belief that a troop train was carrying “some more fish bait.” He was also relieved of any future work on troop trains. Two school teachers, after talking with the Chief, hung up four United States flags and began to sing all the latest war songs as well as take an active part in Loan drives, Red Cross work, etc. The largest hotel in the town did not speak well of the war, and the Chief notified the officers in charge of troop trains to get their meals somewhere else. A local newspaper printed an article reflecting on the Red Cross canteen. “I had all the papers publish an article over my signature,” says the Chief, “that any criticism of the Red Cross should be addressed to the Bureau of Investigation at Washington. For this I have been commended by the Red Cross membership.” It appears that he ought to be commended for his own record, which, on the face of it, is in the blue-ribbon class.
NORTH CAROLINA
Lexington, N. C., is in the southern mountains. The Chief says: “Owing to the peculiar reaction of the mountaineer’s philosophy to the draft laws, many of them ‘stepped back’ into the ‘brush’ to wait until the war was over. We spent much time in traveling around among the lumber jacks and sent out word to many delinquents. It was a simple thing to reach most of these men through the medium of some trusted friend—much simpler than sending armed men into the laurel thickets after the fugitives. I don’t believe there is one case out of ten in western North Carolina where any of our men avoided the draft through a malicious motive. Whenever a friendly adviser could reach them to explain the situation, the majority of them gladly came out. We often made trips of from thirty to fifty miles into the isolated sections. At one point thirty miles from a railroad we got information which was sent across the sea to France and stopped an undesirable appointee to Y. M. C. A. work there. Some humorous things came up in our mountain travels. One day our road dwindled to an almost obliterated trail with grass growing all over it. We sighted an old woman, the first human being seen for several hours, and asked her if that was the right way to Doeville. The old woman looked at us with great contempt, and remarked: ‘Lord bless us, you-all is right in Doeville dis minute!’”
The Chief of Lexington says that not everyone understands the mountain boys and that they certainly make excellent fighters when in the army. “One of them in my district,” reports the Chief, “had to be run down and captured by his own father, who delivered him over to the authorities for military service. This boy was the first of his company to distinguish himself in France.”
The Chief of Salisbury, North Carolina, Division sends in his final report in homely and convincing phrases, a mark of the good common sense employed in his work. One pro-German was called into the office and the Chief said to him: “Mr. ——, I hear that the next time you and your family come to town over the public road, you are going to be blown up without any warning.” The man struck the table with his fist and said: “I’d like to know how! The public road is mine and I’m going to travel on it.” The Chief said: “So our ships had a public highway to Europe. The Germans have destroyed vessels, women and children without warning. What do you think of it?” The pro-German thought this over a minute and exclaimed: “Why hasn’t some one talked to me like that before? I never saw it that way before.”
Hickory, N. C., says: “Our work was largely educational. We had no aliens—all native born American citizens. Thirty of our leading citizens constituted the membership of the League. When we went to work, all the ’aginners’ who were against the war got on the right side. Especially was this true after the amended espionage act went into effect. In my judgment,” says the Chief, “the psychological effect of an organization that could be felt but not seen helped wonderfully in bringing to their right senses the small minority that were not in right at the start.”
Durham, N. C., pulled off one raid on a circus crowd and got ten slackers. “Our community has a foreign element,” says the Chief, “and is above the average in respect to law and order. Our members were prominent in the war activities.”
SOUTH CAROLINA
Anderson, S. C., says: “Our organization has been anxious to answer every call. There are practically no foreigners in this section, so violations of the war measures have been almost negligible. Most of our work has been making reports for overseas service. The men all consider it a great honor to have been members of the League.”