Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 309, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1918 — ONLY CLASS ONE MEN TO BE CALLED [ARTICLE]

ONLY CLASS ONE MEN TO BE CALLED

NATION’S FIGHTING TO BE DONE BY YOUNG MEN WITHOUT DEPENDENTS.

All men for the war armies still to be rawed by the United States will come from class 1 under the new selective service plan. That means the nation's fighting is to be done by young men without families dependent upon their labor for support and unskilled in necessary industrial or agricultural work. Provost Marshal General Crowder announces the new policy in an exhaustive report upon the operation of the selective draft law submitted to secretary Baker and sent to Cofr gress. He says class 1 should provide men for all military needs of the country, and to accomplish that object be urges amendment of the draft law so ag to provide all men who have reached the draft age since June 5, 1917, shall be required to register for classification. Also, in the interest of fair distribution of the military burden, he proposes the quota* of states or districts be determined hereafter on the basis of the number of men in class 1, and not upon population. Available figures indicate, the report says, that there are one milion phyncially and otherwise qualified men under the present regutration will be found in class at questionnaires have been returnee and the classification period endt February 15. To this extension oi registration to men turning twentyone since June 5 of last year and thereafter .will add, 70,000 effective mon a year.

Class one comprises; single men without dependent relatives, married men who nave habitually failed to support their families, who are dependent upon wives for support, ox not usefully engaged, aim those families are suported by incomes in dependent of their labor, unskilled farm laborers, unskilled industrial laborers, registrants by or in respect of whom no deferred classification is claimed or made, registrants who fail to submit questionnaires and in respect of whom no deferred classification is claimed or made, and all registrants not included in any other division of the schedule. Norrawed down under the analysis of the first draft mUdein the report, the plan placed upon unattached single "men- and married men with independent incomes moot of the weight of military .duty. The aggregate number of men in the other division of class one is very small. General Crowder finds that the first draft surprised the highest expectations of the friends of the selective service idea. He pays high tribute, not only to the thousands of civilians who gave ungrudgingly service in* making the plan a success, but also-to the high patriotism of the American people as a whole. “At the President’s call,” he said, “all ranks of the nation, reluctantly entering hte war, nevertheless instantly responded* to the first call of the nation with a vigorous and unselfish co-operation that submerged all endeavor toward the consummation of the national task. I take it that no great national project was ever attempted with so complete a reliance upon the voluntary cooperations of citizens for its execution. Certainly no such burdensome and sacrificial a statute had ever been executed without a great heiarchy of officials. “This law has been administered by civilians whose official delations lie only in necessary powers with which they are vested by the president’s designation of to perform* the duties that are laid upon them. They have accomplished' the task. The have made some mistakes. The system offers room for improvement. “But the great thing they were called upon to do they have done. The vaunted efficiency of absolutism, of which the German empire stands as the avatar, can offer nothing to compare with it. It remains the ultimate test and proof- of the intrinsic political idea upon which American institutions of democracy and self government have been based.” «