Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1918 — SECOND DRAFT REVEALED SOON [ARTICLE]

SECOND DRAFT REVEALED SOON

ANNOUNCEMENT AWAITS ACTION OF CONGRESS—APRIL PROBABLY THE TIME. Washington, March s.—Announcement of the date of the next draft is imminent/ The provost marshalgeneral’s office has prepared “an important announcement,” whicpi is believed to deal with the time and method of summoning the second levy. The best opinion is that the first of the men will move to camp in April. Publication of the announcement is held up for action by the congress on pending amendments to the selective service act. The most important of the proposed changes, in the opinion of Provost MarshallGeneral Crowder, is that which will give him authority to base state quotas on the total number of men in Class Al, instead of the local registered.

Preparations have been made for summoning the remaining negroes certified under the first draft. Between 70,000 and 80,000 of these men have been called, but only half of them have been sent to the training camps. The inadvisability of centralizing these troops in southern camps and the fact that the army medical authorities do not believe it safe to transfer them to colder northern camps during the winter, are given as the principal reasons for the delay. President Wilson is empowered to conscript labor from draft registrants for work on farms,' shipbuilding and other production wherever necessary under amendments to the draft bill, reported favorably today by the house, committee on military affairs.