The Armistice would not come until Nov. 11, now celebrated as Veterans Day.

But on Monday, Sept. 30, 1918, the Allies’ progress toward winning “The Great War” was well known enough for the Springfield Daily News to publish a special section anticipating victory.

Headlines blared about Bulgaria’s surrender and reported that the British had overrun the Hindenburg Line. And in large print above the newspaper’s name was a glowing report from Reuters about the latest source of American pride, its army’s air forces.

“Their commander, Colonel (Billy) Mitchell, proudly claims there is nothing to beat them in the world, and it will be long before their record up to and include Saturday is surpassed, with 60 machines downed and 12 balloons burning without a single casualty.”

Addressing the Springfield Rotary Club in the Bancroft Hotel, Clark Countian Major Edward Eyre Hunt, of the American Red Cross and Belgian Relief Commission, matched that mood.

“The war is not over. No one knows when it will be over” said Hunt, who was from Clark County. “But it is downhill work for the Allies from now on, and the going is good.”

With patriotism running high, the paper reported “much interest is being attracted by the Statue of Liberty which has been placed in the American Trust and Savings Bank. It is lighted by electricity.

“The bank is also displaying the allied colors over its entrances from Main Street and from the Fairbanks lobby.”

Knowing it was unlikely that he’d ever actually be drafted, the newspaper said John E. Connell, of 570 Sherman Ave “bears the honor of being the first Springfield man whose number was drawn from the bowl in the draft lottery at Washington Monday noon. His serial number was 322.”

President Woodrow Wilson himself drew the number.

Still, the local war effort pressed on.

“Practically all of the churches in the city” were observing rally day to promote the sale of war bonds, the newspaper reported.

A full-page advertisement claiming to show “the princes of Germany” dividing up the world illustrated the threat everyone could fight with a simple act.

“Many of the preachers … gave stirring talks on the necessity of the present drive for six billions of dollars and why every man, woman and child in the United States should meet their obligations,” the paper said.

A picture inside the section’s back cover shows a thumb-sucking baby captures the bond hysteria. Because his birth fell on the anniversary of America’s entry into the war and on the day the Third Liberty Bond Campaign was launched, Mr. and Mrs. Howard C. Bailey of Ithaca, N.Y., had named their bouncing baby boy Liberty Bond Bailey.

The greatest sign of optimism may show in the in the playful way the paper reported the debacle that ensued when County Food Administrator J.B. Malone tried to distribute rationing certificates to women whose sugar bowls were empty.

What had been planned as a routine distribution of sugar coupons in Room 62 of the Arcade Building “resulted in a near riot … (and) in many respects … resembled an offensive on the Western front in France,” the paper reported.

The exception, it said, was that in the trench warfare for sugar, “no one took to their heels.”

There were, however, casualties.

“Mrs. W. A. Wildasin, 1412 W. Main St., was the first to need … assistance (and) was escorted to a nearby store from which she was taken to her home in an automobile.

“W.A. Barnes, 45 Burnett Road, afflicted with rheumatism and compelled to walk with canes, was caught in the jam and had to be assisted into the room.

“Mr. C.S. Dillon, rural number four, was knocked down but escaped serious injury.”

Reports indicate that dignity wasn’t the only thing abandoned that day.

“Mr. Malone has in his possession one baby cab, two baskets and a letter which the owners can secure by communicating with him at his offices in the Fairbanks Building.” the paper reported. “These were salvaged from the field of battle.”

The section carries a couple of items that might help the reader of today imagine himself or herself back into the times.

“Do moving pictures hurt your eyes?” one advertisement asked.

“They shouldn’t and they needn’t. We can equip you with a pair of glasses especially intended to protect your eyes from bright lights of all kinds.”

J.M Ihrig, optometrist and optician, sold them at Morrow’s Drugstore, corner of High and Limestone streets.

The paper also reminds us that tanning wasn’t always the fashion.

“Squeeze the juice of two lemons into a bottle containing three ounces of Orchard White, shake well, and you have a quarter pint of the best freckle, sunburn and tan lotion and complexion beautifier at very very small cost,” an advertisement said.

“See how freckles, sunburn, windburn and tan disappear and how clear, soft and white the skin becomes.”

Springfielders learned a few other things that day:

• “Oscar Grube expects to make a specialty of lump coal” at Water Street and the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad. His Champion Coal Co. “will handle all kinds of bituminous coal.”

• “The Italian War Cross for valor has been conferred on Major F.H. La Guardia, American representative in congress, who is now commanding American aviators on the Italian front.” (Frequent flyers will recognize that name.)

More ominous was news Springfielder Charles L. Bauer brought to the city that “Wilbur Wright aviation field is under strict quarantine and that all hospitalities here will have to be abandoned indefinitely, owing to the number of cases of influenza.”

Just as a war was ending its harvest of death, a worldwide plague was sweeping across the globe.

(Note: Thanks to Howard Ashworth for providing a copy of the Sept. 30, 1918, Springfield Daily News.)