The loans whole, drive by drive

BRANCH · THE WWI HOME FRONT · 1917–1919 · FIVE LIBERTY LOANS

Lead: Indiana raised at least $500,000,000 across the five loan drives and the War Savings campaigns, on a population of roughly 3,000,000 — Walter Greenough's official War Purse of Indiana (Indiana Historical Commission, 1922) calls that figure probably low. The county record splits unevenly by drive, and this article prints each drive at exactly the size Greenough's tables and narrative give St. Joseph County — no drive is inflated with another's numbers.

First Loan (spring 1917). The state was still learning its own buying power; more than $40,000,000 of the first issue was bought in the ninety-two counties. On 7 June, Decatur, Morgan and St. Joseph Counties all reported their full quotas met. No St.Second Loan (1–27 October 1917). The State Council of Defense put its whole machinery behind the sale: on 6 October Hays's council telegraphed all ninety-two county defense chairmen to meet their county loan chairmen at once and help plan the campaign, and Greenough records the council using its public-opinion power on individual loan slackers throughout the files. No county subscription total for this drive was extracted here either; the two unextracted tables are named as the delta in the closure.

Third Loan (closed 27 April 1918). This is the drive the county nearly missed. A week before the close St. Joseph had subscribed only 48 per cent of its $2,500,000 allotment and was causing state officials, in Greenough's words, not a little worry; a big Liberty Loan meeting of the South Bend Rotary Club on 1 May carried it among the “white” counties. The official table of 16 May 1918 gives the county whole: chairman Arthur D. Baker, quota $2,500,000, subscription $2,688,000 — 107 per cent. Fourth Loan (28 September–19 October 1918). The northern sixty-eight counties were asked for $108,750,000 and subscribed $117,133,750 officially at the Federal Reserve Bank — 108 per cent. St. Joseph's county chairman in this drive ran the “Volunteer Plan” Greenough singles out for praise: under F. A. Bryan, from late July 1918, the county card-indexed its citizens' ability to buy, filed the cards alphabetically at committee headquarters, and awarded its special volunteer button only when a purchaser bought the amount the committee had agreed upon. Victory Loan (spring 1919). The county table prints whole: chairman W. L. Chandler, quota $3,900,000, subscriptions $4,416,550. The town of New Carlisle is nowhere split out of any county figure; the loans are a county purse, and they print that way.

Sources:

1. Walter Greenough, The War Purse of Indiana (Indiana Historical Commission, 1922), chs. I–VI and county tables, Parts 1, 5, 10, 12, 13, 17 (LDS Genealogy / Archive.org full text) — state total, First Loan quota reports, Second Loan defense-council telegram of 6 October 1917, Third and Victory county tables, Fourth Loan northern totals and the Bryan Volunteer Plan.