ARKANSAS' OLD NEWS: Stamp out Kaiser! Buy bonds

This cartoon promoting War Savings Stamps and Thrift Stamps appeared in the March 28, 1918, Arkansas Gazette.
This cartoon promoting War Savings Stamps and Thrift Stamps appeared in the March 28, 1918, Arkansas Gazette.

It takes money to wage a good war. To pay the bills created by rescuing Europe from the Kaiser in World War I, the United States began a program we continue today: borrowing from the people.

Today we call it "investing in U.S. Treasury securities," and it's the safest fixed-income investment. But in 1917, it was giving the fed'ral gubbmint a loan.

At first, the people weren't super keen. The promise that the money could be reclaimed after a set number of years, with interest, helped get some excited about the new Liberty bonds.

But what really sold the deal was a massive publicity campaign devised by handsome Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo. Its message was that buying the new war bonds was a patriotic duty and anybody who didn't buy as many bonds as he could afford was unpatriotic: He was bad -- not just lazy or poor, bad.

If you are that kind you'd better move to some piker town. You'd better go where you'll have some piker friends.

That's from a full-page newspaper ad sponsored by a Little Rock candy company. A candy company. Old News wrote about these amazing advertisements Oct. 23.

But I haven't mentioned that besides ads in newspapers across the nation, there were millions of posters, buttons, window stickers and cartoons -- and sales speeches by amateurs everywhere. A piker could not even go to the movies without being harangued to buy a bond.

The U.S. Committee on Public Information created citizens clubs around the nation. Called the Four Minute Men, these clubs were for patriots who liked public speaking and also liked motion pictures. Members went to the movies and stood up during the four-minute reel changes to read or recite speeches about buying bonds.

Liberty bonds were sold in four batches between 1917 and 1919. The first batch was 30-year bonds that paid 3.5 percent interest and couldn't be redeemed for at least 15 years; the second batch paid 4 percent interest after 25 years but could be redeemed after 10 years. The third batch, issued 100 years ago this week, carried 4.15 percent interest; and the fourth batch offered even better terms, 4.25 percent. (The name changed to Victory bonds for a fifth issue.)

Each new offering offered more reward to the guys who could afford to buy more bonds, because bonds bought earlier could be rolled up to the higher rate and redeemed as gold. (Which resulted in controversy and a Supreme Court ruling in the 1930s when the debt came due.) So not helping the Kaiser was a really smart savings program ... if you could afford to invest. Many could not.

Late in 1917, the Treasury Department hit upon a way for less affluent people to help out: War Savings Stamps and Thrift Stamps.

The War Savings Stamps let investors buy $5 for less than $5. If you bought your stamp in January 1918, it cost $4.12, but then the price went up one cent every month until sales stopped in December 1918. You stuck your stamps to your very own engraved folder called the War Savings Certificate, with spaces for 20 stamps. You alone were allowed to redeem that. If you waited until 1923, you got the full $5, but you could cash in earlier and get back the purchase price plus one cent for every month since you bought in.

Still, a lot of people -- specifically, children -- couldn't afford to buy $5. For them, McAdoo devised the 25-cent Thrift Stamps, which bore no interest. When you bought your first 25-cent stamp, the Treasury gave you a Thrift Card with room for 15 more stamps -- a full card was $4 worth of stamps. Just throw in the right number of extra cents and -- ta-da! -- you could buy one War Savings Certificate Stamp.

Not only could kids help to finance the war, they learned the thrifty habit of saving. Win-win.

In Little Rock, the Arkansas Democrat conducted a contest to promote Thrift Stamps -- "and also to develop latent poetical talent among residents of Arkansas." Win- ... errr ... ahem.

Announced Feb. 6. 1918, the War Thrift Stamp Jingle Contest awarded one 25-cent stamp a day to the reader who sent in the five-line "jingle" judged to be the best of all the jingles received the day before.

The first winner, must say, was pretty good.

Buy a Thrift Stamp most every day,

You'll save and be the wiser,

And everytime you lick a stamp,

You'll help to lick the kaiser.

Unfortunately, winning that first day eliminated Leo P. Bott Jr. of Little Rock from further competition. But the also-rans showed some promise. Here's Margaret Kohler, 1105 E. 17th St.:

There is a man in our town,

And he is wondrous clever;

He buys a Thrift Stamp every day --

The safest saving ever.

Unfortunately, the other rejects were more suggestive of sorrows to come. "'Twill help Uncle Sam in many things,/ Enable the Angel of Peace to come with swifter wings ..."

By March 15, the winning criteria had slipped to the point this jingle was adjudged best:

The Kaiser may have his "Mein Got,"

His little submarine, too.

But we will have "Our Thrift Stamps,"

While he's playing "peek-a-boo."

Thank you, Brook Yowell of 3832 W. 11th St. Here's my (least) favorite of the also-rans that day:

Uncle Sam has lost some boys,

And can tell you where to find them,

But buy war thrift stamps,

And they will come home,

With Kaiser Bill tied behind them.

In his defense, Raymond Womack of Camden was only 10 years old when he thought that up. Most of the contestants were children by the end of the contest, which mercifully occurred April 8. It relinquished space to a one-column "fever" chart thermometer promoting the sale of the third issue of Liberty bonds.

Here is that final winning jingle, by N.W.C. Harper of Pulaski Heights:

The kaiser is as mean a man

As the devil he can make him.

If we buy Thrift Stamps every day

the devil soon will take him.

And this, a leader among the losers, penned by Frank Merrill Peters Jr. of 1211 Center St.:

Come one and all, both great and small,

Let's help whip Kaiser Bill.

A War Thrift Stamp costs 25 cents.

Buy one! Sure you will.

If you've a yen to be a poet, and to do it before you're dead, think about the thrift stamp jingles, and buy some bonds instead.

Email:

cstorey@arkansasonline.com

photo

This ad for the third issue of Liberty Bonds appeared in the April 6, 1918, Arkansas Democrat.

ActiveStyle on 04/02/2018

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