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Pages of History
With the election out of the way, Christmas over, and another new year just beginning, this column will return to the events of April 1944.
Congressman Karl Stefan noted efforts to increase the manufacture of farm machinery had met with little success. Only enough steel had been allocated to supply 70% of the machinery manufacturer in 1940.
The shortage of farm workers makes the need for machinery, even greater, he said.
The shortage was caused primarily by the draft. During the months of March and April more than 100 Cedar County men – the majority of whom were farm boys – were ordered to report either for physicals or for active duty. Why so many men were needed was not clear.
The war was in its third year and the Office of War Information said that the army had attained its goal of 7,700,000 men and the navy was only 400,000 short of its goal of 3,600,000. Still the Selective Service said it would continue drafting 200,000 men each month. Under the new Selective Service regulations, eligible men up to the age of 38 would be placed in one of three classifications. Those in the 18 to 25 age group, including men with children, would receive no deferments unless they were in essential occupations.
Those in the 26 to 29 age group would receive deferments only if they were employed in essential industries. Fathers in this age group would be drafted only after the supply of men with no children was exhausted.
For men age 30 and over, draft boards would be given more leeway in deciding which occupations were essential.
Men with children would be given preference over men with no children in the 26 to 29 age bracket.
An editorial in the Alliance (NE) Times-Herald said: “We now have an army of over seven million. Less than two million are overseas which means five million are still in this country. We seem to have no place to send these five million, many of whom have been training for more than two years and are getting sullen because they are not being used. It is apparent that millions of men were taken out of agriculture before they were needed, thus crippling the production of food.“ Congressman Karl Stefan noted the federal government employed more than three million civil servants at a cost of more than $8 billion in annual wages. Civil servants and politicians were considered essential and were exempt from the draft. Farm boys were not.
The Nebraska primary election was held April 11. Due to inclement weather and a general lack of interest, the turnout was one of the lowest in the state’s history. Only 1,132 ballots were cast in Cedar County. Of that number 801 Republican and 331 Democratic ballots were cast.
While searching through newspaper files for information to use in my series about the 1944 election, I stumbled on a number of interesting articles.
The one that follows was found in the “Years Ago” column of a 1944 Nebraska newspaper. I was able to trace it back to the Canton (SD) Advocate of July 9, 1878. It said: In a letter to the Virginia City (NV) Enterprise, a miner in the Black Hills told of finding a grisly artifact of a blizzard that swept over what is now western South Dakota during the previous winter. The miner said he and two companions were crossing the prairie when they came upon the skeleton of a horse. They were shocked to see the skull of a man peering through the horse’s ribs. The rider apparently had been caught in a deadly blizzard. With nowhere to seek shelter from the subzero temperatures, the man killed his horse, cut it open, and crawled inside the carcass for protection. But the flesh of the horse froze solid imprisoning the man inside. Animals stripped the flesh from both carcasses leaving only the two skeletons.
