OVER THERE
More than 85,000 Oklahomans marched off to World War I
The “Awkward Squad” gathered at noon on Main Street in front of City Hall on April 6, 1917 — the day the United States Congress declared war on the German Empire and America entered World War I.
Civic leader Robert Everest organized the Oklahoma City group for the purpose of “teaching them the rudiments of military training.” Army drillmaster B.B. Spillman oversaw their efforts. A faded photo in a 100-year-old edition of The
Daily Oklahomancaptured about a halfdozen men outfitted in business attire and armed with rifles drilling in the street.
“Participation will obligate no one financially or involve any promise to serve in the constituted military forces of the country,” read a story in that day’s paper about the hastily recruited squad.
Another story on that day’s front page pegged the cost of the first year of the war at a whopping $3.5 million.
Over the next two years, more than 85,000 Oklahomans from every conceivable background would march and sail off to Europe in what came to be known as the War to End all Wars. Farmers and businessmen served alongside college students and factory workers.
Like elsewhere across the country, their departure realigned Oklahoma’s political scene and laid waste to what had been boom times for just about everyone involved in agriculture or ranching.
“Americans actually did an awful lot better before we entered the war than afterward,” retired Northeastern State University history professor Brad Agnew said. “We were providing them with a vast amount of material which was used in the war effort. After the war began they continued to provide them, but the profits were more or less taxed away.”
War bonds, known as Liberty Bonds, sold well, about $20 billion nationwide. Agnew’s grandfather, a German immigrant, bought plenty because he was concerned other townsfolk would begin to question his patriotism.
“There was pressure on everyone to buy them, but he bought them religiously,” Agnew said.
Eradicating anything German-related from the vernacular came into fashion. German measles became Liberty Measles. Dachshunds became Liberty Hounds. Sauerkraut became Liberty Cabbage.
“Before the war, German was the most popular foreign language in Oklahoma and at that time schools stopped teaching it,” Agnew said.
Green Corn Rebellion
But Oklahoma wasn’t completely united. There were those who favored isolationism. The Socialist Party of America was large and powerful in Oklahoma state politics. Most members opposed American involvement calling it a rich man’s war and questioning the motives behind foreign entanglements.
“There was a sentiment that we didn’t need to go to war and a lot of that attitude was centered in the Midwest and the plains,” said Jonathan Casey, an archivist at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City. “There were suspicions about why Washington wanted to get involved.”
In August, 1917, tenant farmers and Native Americans in rural southeastern Oklahoma, many of them members of the socialist party, rose up to protest the draft. Law enforcement put down the so-called Green Corn Rebellion and the socialist party in Oklahoma was never the same.
“The party died because it didn’t support the war enthusiastically,” Agnew said. “It was literally defunct by the time the war began and the Green Corn rebels were considered threats to democracy.”
As enemy naval attacks on allied shipping escalated, the anti-war movement eventually gave way to nationalism and phrases like, “Remember the Lusitania,” a reference to the sinking of a large passenger liner, galvanized public support for the conflict.
“The sinking of ships and unrestricted submarine warfare helped to solidify support,” Casey said. “But overall, people were patriotic. Some of it was peer pressure, but there was a lot of sincere enthusiasm, along with the dissent.”
The war also changed the dynamics of world finance. The United States became a major international player in the years that followed.
“Where Britain was the leader in finance, they became a big debtor after the war and we became a big creditor,” Casey said.
Oklahoma’s Sgt. York
Many of Oklahoma’s troops were funneled into the 36th Infantry Division alongside National Guard troops from Texas. The division’s 27,000 soldiers trained near Fort Worth.
“They came from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds,” Casey said. “There were many Native Americans which was unique to that division. One company was made up of entirely of Native Americans. There were 17 tribes represented.”
The 36th produced the famed “code talkers,” Native Americans who transmitted messages in their tribal languages to avoid enemy interception, and Joseph Oklahombi, a Choctaw who became one of Oklahoma’s war heroes. Oklahombi captured more than 150 German troops single-handedly and used Choctaw to transmit messages in code the enemy couldn’t decipher.
By the time the last shot was fired in the Great War, the United States had lost 53,000 men, including 726 from Oklahoma. But that total pales in comparison to other nations. Britain lost nearly 750,000 men and France more than a million.
While World War I remembrances in the United States are few and far between, the commemorations carry on in Europe. In virtually every English town resides a monument to the dead from a century ago. A hundred years on, each fall, poppies are worn and displayed in remembrance.
“For us the war was bloody but brief,” Agnew said. “In Europe it was much different. The flower of a whole generation was wiped out.”