Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 138, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1917 — TO MUSTER NOW FOR FARM WORK [ARTICLE]

TO MUSTER NOW FOR FARM WORK

Branch of Boys Working Reserve Organized at Indianapolis— Second Defense. Indianapolis, June 26.— The Indiana branch of the boys’ working reserve of the United States was organized at the statehouse yesterday and Isaac D. Strauss, banker, of Ligonier, was named state director. The organization is affiliated with the state council of defense and is under the direction of the department of labor at Washington. Its object is to register every boy in the state between the ages of 16 to 20, including all those who are able to work but too young to come under the army draft, for industrial and agricultural service. The boys will be put through a physical examination, enlisted and mustered into federal service in the same manner as if they were enlisting in the army or navy. They will take the oath of allegiance and they will become Indiana’s second line of defense, an army of thousands of young workers, expected to take up the burden dropped by the older men who are going out to war. They probably will be placed in huge concentration camps and put to work in industrial plants and on farms. Each county will have a director and he will be at the head of a count organization composed of directors from each township. For the present and until the county organizations are completed, the work will be in charge of the various county councils of defense.