Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1917 — Greatest Lottery In All History. [ARTICLE]

Greatest Lottery In All History.

Today, June 20, the drawing in the greatest lottery in the history of the world will take place in Washington and th? lives of ten million American citizens are involved. Some time in the dim, distant future, the young men of today will look back to this date with the same reverence and thrill that now characterizes the feeling of our people bn July 4, the date of the declaration of independence. Today is the climax of the entrance of the United States of America into the dreadful conflict now being waged across the sea. Those who are selected to go to fight in the cause of justice and humanity will never forget this history-making day. A lottery in which individuals are to be selected to go to the aid of their country is something that is not entirely new, although such a lottery as is being held today is unprecedented in the matter of the numbers to be drawn. Draft has been resorted to before by this country, but in no such gigantic way as that of today.

Every registered man in the United States is to have his chance today to be pressed into the service of his country. Some will consider themselves lucky if not called upon for service in the first army; they will have the advantage of a few more months amid home surroundings before they are called upon to prepare for active service. Others will look upon their selection for the first army as the greatest opportunity that has ever been presented to them. Every safeguard has been thrown around the drawing that human ingenuity could devise, and the only possibility for a display of favoritism lodges in the numerous exemption' boards throughout the country. But it is not probable that any will attempt anything that is not legitimate, although no great temptations will, in any instances, be placed in the paths of members of such boards. A brief survey of the plan to be followed by the government in the selection of the men today will not be amiss at this time, in view of the fact that such a great interest centers in the lottery. There are 4,557 registration boards. Each board supervises either a county in the rural sections or a district with an estimated population of 30,000 in cities of 30,000 and over. The number of registrants in these districts varies. The smallest number in any one district is 187, in an unsettled county in Wyoming. The highest is 10,000 in a district of Detroit. ,

Inclosed in gelatjne capsules will be numbers from 1 to 10,500. These will be placed in a great glass bowl. They will then be drawn out one at a time. The first number drawn will mean that every mah holding a registration card bearing tnat number in all of the 4,557 districts will be the first called to serve. Owing to the difference of registration in various districts, however, there is this provision: That if the first number or numbers drawn are higher than the card bearing the highest number in a district, the'first number to be drawn within the limit of the numbered cards of that district will designate the first man called from the district in question. , For instance, should No. 10,000 be drawn out first, it would affect only a few districts, those having that number of registered men. Then if No. 24 was next to be drawn, the man hloding card No. 24 would be the second man to be called in the district of more than 10,000, but first in all below 10,000. Each registered man can learn from the local board of his district the number of registrants in the district. He can determine his liability to call by simply scratching out all numbers higher than the number of registration cards in his district. This will give him his exact position in relation to his own district. . Each district is called upon to supply 200 per cent of its quota, General Crowder has announced. This, if the registered number in a district is 200 and the quota 20, forty men will be called for examination. This means that a man who stands forty-first on the list will be exempt from the first call, provided that out of the for|y men called, twenty are found physically fit and free from exemption. Should more than forty be required in order to secure twenty, the next men in line will be called. ~ ~ ‘ One state, New Jersey, upset the first laid plans of the government in the gamble of the lives of the 10,000,000 men. Widespread error m numbering registration cards by Jersey officials has forced the war department to hurriedly change its plans.