By Danny Crownover [The Vagabond]
Back in June 1918, when World War I was beginning to take a heavy toll of American lives, there was an interesting resurgence of religious activity here in Gadsden as well as elsewhere in the nation.
Troubled souls resorted to prayer in the belief that it would aid in bringing about peace and would protect and preserve lives of young boys on the firing line.
It was recalled that cottage prayer meetings were organized in about 20 districts that were scattered all over the city in order to reach every community.
Some of the leading church women were placed in charge as district captains. Some of those captains were Mrs. Janie Jones, Mrs. J.H. Holcomb, Mrs. Wm. Acker, Mrs. J.B. Caldwell, Mrs. Sallie Hughes, Mrs. Joseph Balfour, Mrs. Grace Aldredge, Mrs. J.M. Brown, Mrs. C.A. Heath, Mrs. Frances Allen, Mrs. Lee Wood, Mrs. J.W. Taylor, Mrs. Frank Pogue, Mrs. Bettie Green, Mrs. A.B. Harris, Mrs. M. B. Horton, Mrs. James L. Herring, Mrs. J.M. Elliott, Jr., Mrs. John Weller, Mrs. C.C. Isbell, Mrs. W.A. Richie, Mrs. Roy Brown, Mrs. J.W. Haynes, Mrs. Sam Richardson. Mrs. A. Greet, Mrs. H.M. Johnson, Mrs. J.M. Cox, and Mrs. W.T. Cox.
During that month there was much discussion of the report of the draft board that 240 boys had failed to report or to make any sort of response to the call for military service.
State, county and federal officers were looking for them and they and their parents and guardians were warned that they would be hunted down and punished unless they came in promptly and had a legal excuse for not reporting.
One member of the local board told the local newspaper that he favored asking the army to send a company here to round up the “slackers,” but nothing of that kind was done, fortunately.
It was tried in another county without any good coming of it. Not all of the boys who failed to respond to the draft call were slackers. Some of them could not read and write and in some cases their parents were equally illiterate.
Most of them did not understand a foreign war and some were just cowards. One boy dug a hole in the ground under a brush heap on his father’s farm, moved a bed into it and hid out for weeks.
When caught he showed fight and his father was arrested for harboring him.
A German in the western end of the county was arrested by federal men for canvassing his neighborhood in an effort to induce the people not to buy war bonds. He declared the Germans were in the right and that the United States had entered upon a war of aggression for spoils. He said that he was merely repeating what some congressmen and senators were saying.
Another German said that Germany would conquer the United States, but that they would be good to the people of this country.
Some arrests were made and, in a few instances, the arrested parties were entirely innocent and were the victims of a gross injustice.
The barbers of Gadsden raised the price of shaves from 15 cents to 20 cents and soda fountains raised prices on ordinary drinks from five to ten cents, with proportionate raises on creams and sherberts.
At the same time the government issued its famous “fight to work” order, with the result that many in the so-called soft jobs hustled around for essential work.
More than 100 young men applied for work with the Alabama company which operated two blast furnaces here. Many others went to the steel plant and to other factories.
The price of gas was hiked from $1.25 to $1.75 per 1,000 feet, the company explaining that it started operation in 1910 at a $1.75 per 1,000 feet, the company explaining that it started operation in 1910 at a $1.75 rate and then reduced the price later to $1.25.
