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- 112 Chapter 9 rAIny dAy bluEs in 1918 war was raging in europe, and the United States had been drawn into the fray despite Woodrow Wilson’s attempts to keep the country neutral . American troops started to arrive in France in June 1917, but were not involved in combat until October 1917. By early 1918 tens of thousands of U.S. troops were arriving weekly in France—and they were needed: on March 21, 1918, the Germans launched Operation Michel, the start of their final offensive of the war and a last-ditch attempt to break the stalemate of trench warfare. As part of the preparedness for war, every U.S. man, whether nativeborn , naturalized, or alien, was registered for the draft. The Selective Service Act 40 Stat. 76 was passed by Congress on May 18, 1917, on the nation’s entry into World War I. The act gave the president the power to draft men for military service. By the end of World War I about 24 million men had registered for the draft, and some 2.8 million were inducted into military service. There were three draft registrations between June 1917 and September 1918, totalling over 24 million names of all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. The first registration, on June 5, 1917, was for all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one. The second, on June 5, 1918, registered those who attained the age of twenty-one after June 5, 1917. A supplemental registration was held on August 24, 1918, for those becoming twenty-one after June 5, 1918. Finally, on September 12, 1918, a third registration was held for men aged eighteen to forty-five. These draft registration cards provide an invaluable source of information for genealogists and researchers alike, and their importance is only now starting to be appreciated by researchers into early jazz history. rainy day blues 113 On September 12, 1918, Sweatman duly completed his draft registration card, thereby confirming to posterity his baptismal (middle) name of Coleman (although it is shown as Coleman, the e has clearly been obliterated , but by whom is not known) and at the same time sowing the seeds of confusion by signing his forename as Wilber, although that appears to have been his choice of spelling at the time. He gave his date of birth as February 7, 1882, that he was a native-born Negro, and that his address was 251 West 143rd Street in New York City and that his nearest relative was his wife, Nettie, who shared the same address. It is particularly interesting that he gave his employment as “vaudeville performer” and that his employer was Bruce Duffus of the Putnan [sic] Building, 1493 Broadway, New York. Reading this at face value, as was no doubt intended, it seemed that he was working for Bruce Duffus in a nonspecific role as a vaudeville performer. It is important to bear in mind that the purpose of the draft registration was to ascertain the number of men suitable to send to the Western Front, and many used any ploy available to defer or delay being called up. If Sweatman had entered on the card that he was a self-employed musician, there would be a much greater likelihood of his being called for a medical examination. British-born Harold Bruce Duffus was a partner, along with brother Lennox Duffus and Louis Wesley, in the Wesley Office, a theatrical management business based on the fifth floor of the Putnam Building, a wellknown base for businesses involved in all aspects of vaudeville and theater management.1 Also located in the Putnam Building was the theatrical agency headed by veteran vaudevillian Pat Casey, who later on acted as Sweatman’s vaudeville booker. It seems likely that the Wesley Office was booking Sweatman on the Keith-Albee and Orpheum vaudeville circuits, so to call Duffus his employer was not stretching the truth too far. By the beginning of 1918 black regiments (under the command of white officers) were completing basic training at army camps throughout the country and being readied to make the Atlantic crossing to France—but not to engage the enemy. Practically all black American troops spent their active service undertaking a variety of menial but essential logistical roles; transport, trench digging, road repairing, pioneering, stevedoring at English Channel ports, and the like. The solitary exception to this was the New York–raised 15th Regiment (later the 369th U.S...

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