The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-17
STORE NO EXCUSE
Hardware Merchant Can't
Eyade Service in Army.
Selling Agricultural Imple-
ments Doesn't Exempt Man.
6 OUT OF 65 ARE EXCUSED
All Others Expected To Answer
Pink Card Call.
Even an Onion Raiser Is Not
Considered Farmer.

ers Neither are their services at
home required by the government in
order to win the war. That was the
decision of the draft appeal board.
which today made a soldier of Luculus
N Plummer who sells plows and
cultivators and threshing machines
and manure spreaders to Atchlson
county farmers. Piummer sought eX-
'emption from draft army service on
an agricultural plea.
ConscriptS spent another bad DAY
with the district appeal board. A rec
ord for consideration of sixty-flVe
claims during the twenty-four hours
period ending at noon today showed
fifty-nine exemption claims had been
denied. Exemptions were granted 10
six men.
Loud speeches by Kansas politicians
in behalf of the soldiers of the soil
seems to have aroused the patriouc
spirit of many conscripts to a desire
to ride pillow rather than fight in the
trenches. All manner of farm exemp-
ton claims were considered by the
appeal board today. The returns
from the board, however, indicate Mt
tie response to the pre-campaign
speeches. The board made a record
for providing Sammies for the army
in France and listed nearly 80 per
cent of the claimants for service.
Novel Pleas Made.
The claim of Luculus n. Plummer
was one of the most novel presented
to the board He owns a $4,000 stock
of hardware in the town of AIRING
ton, Atchison county. He is 80 years
old and sought exemption as farm
| err, But the board believed some one
might be drafted to sell the plows
and cultivators and marked Plummer
| for service in the national army.
| Another agricultural plea before
| the board today came from a LeaN-
enworth county man who wanted re-
lief from army service because he is
| busy with two acres of onions. The
| neighbors must gather the onion crop
! and the Leavenworth county man
must carry musket and drill with
| the Sammies.
w. F. Leighton of Atchison county
was denied exemption, altho he has
| spent four years in active farming. \.
c .Gerety, also of Atchison county.
has spent ten years on a farm. But
| some one must be found to do his
work. The board decided Gerety was
needed 20 fight the Germans.
Brothers Divide Labor.
Charles F. Stutz of Atchison county
! will go to war and his brother will
stay at home. Both men were called
1 before the Atchison board for exam
ination. Both claimed agricultural
exemption. One brother was exempt
ed to do the farm work. But the sec
ond brother goes to the front.
Exemption claims of Nemaha
man were denied when the evidence
showed that he based exemption
claims the fact that he rented a
| tract of land from "a crippled LADY,
| Bachelor life on farm must say
goodbye to J. w. Soper. Marion county
| farmer. Young Soper and his father
till the soil somewhere in Marion
county" They keep bachelor quar-
ters. In an appeal for exemption il
| was urged that the father could not
replace his son since bachelor life was
distasteful to men of the pIow The
appeal board couldn't harmonic the
claim with their knowledge of farm
life and Soper was ordered to report
for army service.
| William H. Pasewark of Atchison
county claimed exemption because he
| was a carrier on a rural mail route e
and farmed when not busy with the
mails. He based his exemption claim
on an agricultural plea. The appeal
board, tho, held that Pasewark's farm
work is a sideline and that his plea
for exemption is not sufficient to re-
lieve him, from the call to colors.