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Take My Husband, Please! Draft Evaders of Missouri

By Kat on June 13, 2008 | | Comments (7)

[Kat]

While researching Paul Benson's story, I came across some interesting history. It seems that not everybody was willing or desirous of doing their duty during the "Good War" or World War II. Some young men, whose parents owned and operated a farm, were given "farm deferments". Ostensibly to stay home and help with the farm. Everyone was being urged to produce more for the war effort. Others received deferments to work in the "war" related industries manufacturing things like ammunition, planes, tanks and many other things.

Well, some folks thought that it was unfair since not everyone asked for or received such deferments. Others took it upon themselves to report men that they thought were "slackers".

For instance, this letter from a wife who asked the draft board to take her husband, please [spelling as is]:

1772 Mississippi ave.
St. Louis Mo.,
6/7/43

Dear Sir:

This is to notifiy the draft board that I still want my husband inducted in the army.

we have been seperated since some time in Jan 43. and he isn't doing much to help support our two children.

I work at the U.S. Cartridge plant and make $32.24 per week: he works at the same plant and makes $40.00 per week, and is supposed to give me $10.00 per week but only gives me about 20.00 per month.

He is Ralph Edward McGuire

Respectfully Yours
Lucy McGuire

These folks complained, "He wrecked my car, please take him to the army."

He's honory[sic], runs around on his wife, doesn't keep a job and doesn't take care of his kids. Please take him to the army.

Or this one that complained that "we will never win a war like this."

Sullivan mo april. 17 1943

Local Board.

I am a close nabor of the Griffith Family and I no that them quins (this word is probably supposed to be twins) boys is not doing a thing but loafing around and lets their Dad do the plowing and their is One of the Caldwellls boy to that ant at work I think if the other young men had to go these boys ought to to for it is not more then right for it is a war that have got to be wone and I think if they ant doing any thing they ought to go even if they are quins (again probably twins) and they have got a married boy with one child and he is like the others wont work if they stay out of the army I think you ought to see that they go to work Their names is Willard, and Hillard and Ames Griffith. I see that the others boys around here is at work except the Griffith & Marvin Caldwell, Why they keep then out it is not because they needed them it is because they hated to seen them go. I no a man around here needs his boys to work but they had to go so I dont think that These boy ought to stay out just because their family narsses them I am just a rell Amercian and think you are to so why not make every body do their part we will never win the war like this.

Just Another American

Huh. The one thing that I'm reminded of is the constant little digs by folks like J.F. Kerry about only stupid people end up in Iraq. Any idea how many young men with little education ended up fighting in World War II? Or, how many people with little education did the work on farms and in factories that helped win the war? I'm reminded of the famous phrase from Forest Gump: stupid is as stupid does.

Mr. Kerry was just plain stupid. I would guess that he would have some admiration for some of the young men who were "smart" enough to dodge the draft in World War II.

More funny (and not so funny) letters to the draft board in flash traffic.

We Have Sons in the Army

July 23, 1943

Draft Board
Potasi. mo.
I would like to report to you "Virgil Allen:, who was recently de-ferred to farm. He never would wark on the farm until a few months' be-for he was eighteen. Lots of days he daesn't get up until noon & brags about how easy it was for him to get aut of the army & does as little farming as he can get by with.

He has a pick up truck & gaes to Shirley swimming in Berriers three or four times a week. In the last two or three weeks he has made trips to Bismark & Winegarden. Now he is planning a trip to St. Louis Highlands. These ore all pleasure trips. How daes he get so much gas? We have sons in the army who work hard & never take any pleasure trips and they are proud to do it but to us here at home it seems a pity such as this should be allowed.

We hope you will consider this matter seriously and we also believe all should be treated the same as it is a few are deferred to farm but are running here & there on pleasure trips as bad as we need farm help.

We feel this is our duty to report this to you & are sure you will do what ever you think is best. you can ask any one who is lives near Allen or gaes to Berriers often & they will report the same to you.

Respect fully yours
Boasties for Uncle Sam.

And you thought that lazing around and sleeping half the day away was only a problem for the latest generation. If they had Nintendo back then, I'm sure that would have been on the list of vices this young man had. If you wonder how this guy had all the gas he could want when everyone else had to start rationing in February 1943, farms were basically exempted from the ration as "war essential". Farmers were given ration cards that would allow them to get as much as 500 gallons a month or more. These folks had a right to be upset.

What constitutes draft evasion? You were born on a farm.

PEARL HARBOR!!! Our country is at war!!! A call to arms! The half-french tiff diggers sons go with out a fuss. He has never had anything but he is glad to give all his all for the freedom he has always known. But you, son of a comfortable farmer [snip]

Your[sic] yellow - you don't want to go and your family is just as bad because they aid and abet you.

Apparently, James Cole had a nice job up in the city and gave it up to go back to the farm in order to get a deferment (according to this lady). The rest of the folks saw him driving around in his car, rarely working, driving up to St. Louis to see his girlfriend and catch a ball game. As has been the case for centuries, this mother asks, "Is this a poor man's son's war? Does the country gentleman's sons go free?"

We tiff digger mothers have hearts too-- our boys are just as precious to us -- some of our sons are reported missing -- yet, as we walk along the road (and we WALK) can eat the dust of a draft evader. [snip]http://www.thedonovan.com/mt-static/images/formatting-icons/bold.gif Bold

Written for a poor indignant mother.

What's a "tiff digger"? Glad you asked. "Tiff" is another name for Barite. According to this article , "tiff digging" is described as such:

When Alex and Mary Kulongoski bought a 160- acre farm just outside Cadet in Washington County, Missouri, where they had four sons and a daughter, tiff mining was more important than farming in the county. The farmers around them had shallow diggings on their land. Each hole had a hand-made windlass to hoist tiff, a white, chalky mineral, also called barite, and a "rattle box," made like a baby's cradle, to shake the clay off the lumps of barite. The diggers could not sell the stuff to paint and rubber manufacturers without cleaning it.

More letters...

Maybe the army can make a man of him.

This guy was legitimately trying to get a deferment and simply didn't have the records to prove what and who he was because, like many folks of the time, he traded for work and product.

Use some common sense!

He makes his brags how smart he is didnt have to go to the army

My son won't work. Please find him a job.

He's always drunk.

Apparently, Cadet, MO had a lot of lazy, drunks laying around doing nothing. Another one.

You can find more letters here. And that's just one draft board in one county. Imagine how many letters were written around the country to draft boards just like this that read: Take my husband, please!

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7 Comments

By emdfl on June 13, 2008 5:21 AM
My Dad's job during that late unpleasentness was delivering newspapers. That was considered a critical war-related job. He got extra ration points for tires and gasoline and was draft exempt.
 
By Grim on June 13, 2008 6:08 AM
Some people were given "deferments" whether they wanted them or not. One of my grandfathers tried to enlist three times, and was turned down all three times because of his job: a welder at the Oak Ridge weapons plant. Every man can be a rifleman; but not every man's a welder. :)
 
By R. Jewell on June 13, 2008 7:12 AM
My father was one of those "draft dodging farmers" Kat points out. Her dissertation would lead you to believe that they were all the worthless, lazy, drunken sons of wealthy land owners, but in fact, most of them were just like my Dad, young (Dad was 30 when Japan struck) hard working men raised on the farm and getting a start on their own "sharecropping" somebody else's land while dreaming some day to own their own 80 acres. My father never saw that dream materialize...but he did raise a family of Patriots on a sharecropper's earnings. He was man of God, whose word was his bond, and his handshake more binding than any signature on a contract. The vast majority of those "draft dodging farmers" went on to build this country into the Agricultural Superpower that it is today. Quite honestly, Kat, having grown up in the Indiana corn fields 'mongst WWII Vets and "draft dodging farmers", this is the first time I've ever heard the subject brought up.
 
By BillT on June 13, 2008 7:51 AM
My late father-in-law tried to enlist when Pearl Harbor was hit. He didn't make the cut because he only had vision in one eye. He went to work at the American Can Company as a plater, a "war-essential" job -- six months later, he was drafted. Sometime during "Torch," his platoon leader found out *why* he fired righty but sighted with his left eye. He got shipped home on a Liberty ship carrying Afrika Korps PWs and spent the remainder of the war at Riley -- shuttling PWs back and forth from the farms. He got birthday cards from some of of his former charges until just before he died.
 
By kat-missouri on June 13, 2008 9:05 AM
Her dissertation would lead you to believe that they were all the worthless, lazy, drunken sons of wealthy land owners, but in fact, most of them were just like my Dad, young (Dad was 30 when Japan struck) hard working men raised on the farm and getting a start on their own "sharecropping" somebody else's land while dreaming some day to own their own 80 acres.
My "dissertation" was simply finding these letters and thinking they were interesting. It is clear from several of the letters if you read them that the issue wasn't whether they really could or couldn't get drafted, but people's perception of those who didn't go. And, I thought it was interesting that there were at least several young men who had, indeed, played the system. I don't think pointing that out reflects on anyone personally. I do think some of you have been reading our modern press for so long, you expect that any negative connotations about military issues is some how reflective of the whole. That's clearly on you since I've just spent over a week researching and putting up the story of a young man who died on Iwo Jima. The remaining story of boot camp and his fight to follow next week. It's history, gentlemen, that's it.
 
By MAJ Arkay on June 13, 2008 10:11 AM
Even the farm deferments were not a guarantee, particularly in rural areas where pretty much the whole population was farmers. My dad, the baby of ten, and his immediately older brother were both drafted the months they turned 18, leaving only Grandma and Grandad to run the farm. All the other eight kids had long left home. The county draft board had run out of town boys to draft, except their own sons, so they reached out to the farms to make quota. Some of their sons enlisted anyway, so Draft Board Dads' attempts to protect sons via not drafting didn't quite work out... What I don't understand is whether or not a county draft board could have gone back to the government and gotten out of quotas, based upon the fact that the non-deferred draftable population had been used up. If so, then that county's draft board should have done so, rather than ignore farm exemptions. Luckily, my dad and uncle came home just fine. My grandparents never forgave the county draft board's actions, though, and the board members were never again welcome in my grandparents' home. And that was a significant social cut, in a low population county. It is a fascinating history, Kat. Thanks for sharing.
 
By R. Jewell on June 13, 2008 12:23 PM
'playing the system" to avoid Military Conscription is probably as old as time itself.... In fact, it actually developed into something akin to an 'art form" Many of the letters were unsigned, making them in my opinion no more credible than annonomous blog comments that you find today.