Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 116, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1918 — WORK OR FIGHT [ARTICLE]

WORK OR FIGHT

MEN IN “NONESSENTIAL” JOBS MUST GET BUSY OR BE IN UNIFORM JULY 1. Every man of draft age must work or fight after July 1, under a drastic amendment to the selective service regulations announced today by Provost Marshal Geri. Crowder. Not only idlers, but all draft registrants engaged in what are held to be nonuseful occupations are to be haled before local boards and given the choice of a new job or the army. The provost marshal general’s regbaseball players either to engage in some useful occupation or to join the army. Gamblers, race track and bucketshop attendants and fortune tellers, head the list, but those who will be reached by the new regulation also include waiters and bartenders, theatre ushers and attendants, passenger elevator operators and other attendants of clubs, hotels, stores, etc., domestics and clerks in stores. Baseball players, as well as jockeys, professional golfers and other professional sportsmen, Gen. Crowder said, will be affected by the regulations if strictly enforced. Gen. Crowder said he did not desire to make specific rulings at this time and would make rulings only when cases come to him from local boards after July 1. . , The war department issued a statement regarding baseball players and other professional sportsmen, which said: “No ruling as to whether baseball players or persons engaged in golf, tennis or any other sport, come under the regulations regarding idlers and nonessential pursuits will be made until a specific case has been appealed to the provost marshal general’s office. xTheatrical performers , are excepted from the regulations at the direction of Secretary of War Baker, who is said to feel that the people can not do without all amusement in war times, and that other amusements could be dispensed with more readily. Deferred classification granted on .account ■> of dependents will be disregarded entirely in applying the rule. A man may be at the bottom of class one or even in class four, but if he falls within the regulation and refuses to take useful employment he will be given a new number in class one that will send him into the military service forthwith. Local boards are authorized -. to use discretion only where they find that enforced change of employment would result disproportionate hardships upon his dependents. It had been known for some time that some form of “work or fight” plan had been submitted to President Wilson, but there had been no intimation that it was so far-reaching in scope. Both the military authorities and department of labor officials believe that it will go a long way toward solving the labor problem for farmers, shipbuilders and munition makers, and will end for the present at least talk of conscription of labor. The announcement today gives notice significantly that the list of nonuseful ocupations will be extended from time to time as necessity requires.