How could laborers come up with the price of commutation or a substitute? Few of them did, out of their own pockets. But numerous cities and counties appropriated funds raised by property taxes to pay the $300 for those who could not afford it. Tammany Hall ward committees collected money to hire substitutes for draftees, and political machines elsewhere followed suit. Several factories and businesses and railroads bought exemptions for drafted workers with funds contributed by employers and by a 10 percent levy on wages. Draft insurance societies sprang up everywhere to offer a $300 policy
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