Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 304, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1917 — Classifying Registrants [ARTICLE]

Classifying Registrants

The work of classifying more than 9,000,000 registrants in respect to the order of their liability for military service on the basis of usefulness in civilian or military life has begun in earnest. The t?sk is an enormous one which will require the services of thousands of men. The first step—the sending of the questionnaires to registrants—is now nearing completion. In a few days all the blanks should have been returned to the boards. Then must be finished the work of assigning the men to the five groups denoting the order of liability. Practically speaking, there are only four classes liable for service as the fifth group includes alien enemies, those physically incapacitated, ministers, federal officials and others exempted by statute. The new. scheme has not proceeded 'far enough to make possible a conclusion as to its complete success, but its superiorities over the old are so obvious that it seems certain to work out more satisfactorily. Lack of uniformity in the decisions of different boards in similar cases was the gravest objection to the former system. Many married men in some sections were taken; relatively few of them in others. In Indianapolis the local boards were reversed in more than 900 cases of 1,500 by the district appeal boards, which indicates the difference of opinion possible under the old arrangement. The new plan divides the drafted men into five well /iifferentiated “groups. .The status of the married men it established .definitely by the inclusion in the fourth group of a man whose wife, or children, are “mainly dependent” upon him for support. With the variety of explanatory rulings that have been made on this provision it should not be difficult to obtain uniform action. If there is any possibility of a difference in practice through a difference in interpretation of the rules, the boards of each local district should get together to adopt a uniform attitude which should be correlated to that of the other boards over the country. The general attitude of the President and the war department toward exemption because of dependency has been made sufficiently clear to prevent any general difference in practice. If the men of twenty years of age are to be made subject to call congress should act at once as this age would yield a large number of recruits and would affect the total to be charged agtinst other classes.