The previous post ended with a report that, by early October 1917, York County had met its initial quota of 129 draftees. The initial registration and call-up had gone well enough, but federal authorities recognized that the process needed to be refined. Sedgwick’s history of York County offers a helpful explanation:
Following the drawing on July 20th [the national drawing of numbers], the local selective board had proceeded during the summer and fall months to call in groups of registrants as their numbers were reached, give them a physical examination, and receive and determine upon their claims for exemption upon the various grounds designated. That method of calling all men as their numbers were reached and discharging or accepting rested upon the general assumption that a specific number of men were known to be needed for military service at a given time, and, therefore, enough registrants should be called by the county board in the sequence of their order numbers and selected according to the laws and regulations, until a number of qualified men has been obtained equal to the board’s current quota, and the remainder discharged or exempted.
That was necessarily adopted for the early stage of the war, and proved effective for the purpose whether in all instances absolutely fair to all concerned or not. But experience was showing that it was wasteful, and would grow more ineffective as the quotas grew larger and speed became more necessary in meeting the quotas. So, late in the year of 1917 a new method was worked out by the authorities of the War Department. This became effective on December 15, 1917, at which time the first call for 687,000 men had been more than filled by local boards and a lull in the work presented the opportunity for changing the plan.
The essential change was this: First, that the physical examination followed, instead of preceding, the determination of the claim for discharge or exemption; second, the registrant was required to fill out a document that will always occupy a historical place in American life hereafter—the questionnaire. (Sedgwick 1921, 2:832, here)
We covered the draft questionnaire in a previous post (here), so here we need only to supplement and clarify that earlier discussion. First, the questionnaire was mailed to men who had registered during the initial registration, on 5 June 1917. Presumably it was not sent to those who had already been mustered into service or even to those who had already gone through the physical examination and interview at the local draft board; I have not read that anywhere, but it stands to reason. Second, earlier I wondered about the resources available to registrants who would have found the sixteen-page questionnaire daunting. Once again, Sedgwick supplies an answer.
The attorneys of York met with the legal advisory board in December and arrangements were made for handling the work incident to the making out of the questionnaires which were then being mailed to the registered men at regular intervals. The legal advisory hoard consisted of Judge Corcoran, Judge Spurlock, and Senator Sandall. There were twelve lawyers, besides these gentlemen, and two attorneys who sat with a member of the hoard each day to attend to the business as it was required.
Each registrant was required to make out his own statement unless he was unable to write. But the two assistants did what was permissible in giving advice and assistance subject to the rules as interpreted by the member of the legal advisory hoard and the provost marshal. They met in the juryroom of the District Court room at the courthouse regularly each day at 9 o’clock until the close of the specified time. (Sedgwick 1921, 2:833, here)
As earlier with the list of registrants and their assigned numbers, the information was communicated to those affected through newspapers. The 14 December 1918 York Republican, for example, included a substantial article explaining what registrants could expect from the questionnaire (for a larger version, see here).
The questionnaire was designed, above all, to collect the information needed for local draft boards to determine which registrants were exempt and which were subject to call-up and service. Beyond that, the questionnaire also provided a classification system for draft boards to identify which registrants were to be called up first, which second, and so on. A previous post covered the five classes, but the summary quoted there bears repeating.
Those in Class I were eligible for immediate military service. They included unskilled workers and those engaged in industrial or agricultural enterprises not considered essential. Class I also included bachelors, and husbands and fathers who either habitually failed to support their wives and families or who were not usefully employed. … Those temporarily deferred until after Class I men had been drafted, Classes II and III, included married men usefully employed, and skilled industrial and agricultural workers engaged in necessary enterprises.… Class IV, not to be drafted until after the other classes, included married men whose dependents had no other means of support and the heads of necessary business or agrarian enterprises. (Chambers 1987, 191)
As noted earlier, anyone assigned to class V was permanently exempt. With that background, we are now ready to examine how this worked out in practice, with a particular focus on how it affected Bullers in York County.
What is of most interest to us is the classification assignments. The six men shown to the right are all assigned to class 5, meaning they were permanently exempt. Not all men were so fortunate. The list for 29 December, for example, includes eight names, six of whom were assigned to class 1, meaning they were among the first who would be called up.
Only one Buller appeared in this list: David Adam Buller. As we noted earlier (here), he was a distant relative with an unknown connection to our family. He was assigned to class 4, which as we read above was reserved for married men who were the sole support of their families. In fact, David Adam Buller’s draft registration card notes that he was married with three children, which justified this classification. What is a little curious is that David also claimed an exemption on religious grounds, namely, that he was a member of a Mennonite Brethren church. Why was he not granted a religious exemption? Did the local draft board not fully understand how to classify religious exemptions? Or was assigning someone to class 4 perhaps a practical approach based on the assumption that class 4 men would never be called up? For the moment, we must leave those questions unanswered.
New listings of men eligible for the draft continued to be published during the first months of 1918. On 15 February, the list included Frank P. Buller, the brother of David Adam Buller. He was assigned to class 5, permanent exemption. Frank’s classification may give us a clue as to how the system worked for Mennonites and other nonresistant groups. According to his registration card, Frank (Franz) was a single man who worked for his brother. Clearly, he did not meet any of the class 4 conditions. Like his brother David, he claimed a religious exemption, with the explanation that he was Mennonite. It is reasonable to deduce from this (at least for the time being) that most religious exemptions were assigned to class 5, which ensured that the registrant would never be called up. However, registrants who claimed a religious exemption but who had other reasons for exemption might be assigned to another class, as in the case of David Adam Buller. To be clear, we do not know this for certain, but it seems reasonable.
Frank D. Buller was not so lucky. Frank was from another Buller family distantly related to us. On his registration card he claimed an exemption, but it was not based on his religious commitment. Rather, he asked for an exemption because he had had two operations. Apparently the draft board did not find his claim justified. Thus the 3 May 1918 York Republican reported that Frank and thirteen other men left that day for basic training at Fort Logan in Denver. Since this was still early in the draft, it is reasonable to think that Frank had been assigned to class 1.
Fifteen Bullers in York County registered for the World War I draft. Five of those fifteen were part of the initial registration, on 5 June 1917; the others registered in June–September 1918. Of these first five Bullers, we know that one (Frank P.) was permanently exempted, presumably on religious grounds; one (David Adam) was assigned to class 4 and thus was never called up; one (Frank D.) was drafted and sent off to basic training in May of 1918; and two (Andrew and Henry B.) were included among the list of registrants (see here). We hear nothing further about Andrew (at least as far as I can discover), but Henry B., like us a member of the broader David and Helena Zielke Buller family, does appear on the pages of The York Republican. His situation introduces another complexity into our story of Bullers (and Mennonites and men more generally) in the World War I draft. Of course, that wrinkle merits its own post, which will follow in due course.
* The lists of men eligible for conscription contain several curiosities. First, some of the names included here do not appear in the earlier list of York County’s 1,594 registrants. Most notably, David Adam Buller appears in the 3 January 1918 list of eligibles, but he was not listed in what was billed earlier as the comprehensive list of registrants. It is unclear why some registrants appear only now.
Second, the numbers given in the lists of eligibles are not the random numbers assigned in anticipation of the national drawing. Rather, they are the registration card numbers. David Adam Buller’s registration card was numbered 769, and that is his number in the list of eligibles. Likewise, his brother Frank’s registration card was numbered 1391, and that is his number in the 15 February 1918 list of eligibles.
Works Cited
Chambers, John Whiteclay, II. 1987. To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America. New York: Free Press.
Sedgwick, T. E., ed. 1921. York County Nebraska and Its People. 2 vols. Chicago: Clarke. Available online here and here.
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