Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1917 — GENERAL AND STATE NEWS [ARTICLE]

GENERAL AND STATE NEWS

Telegraphic Reports From Many Parts of the Country. SHORT BITS OF THE UNUSUAL Happenings In the Nearby Cities and Towns—Matters of Minor Mention from Many Places. MARRIED MEN NOT EXEMPT Appeals Must Be Taken in AU Cases of Discharge. The generally accepted view that all married men would be exempt from military duty seems to have struck a snag during the past week and it now looks as though the decision of the local board will in nowise determine the matter. The latest instructions from Provost Marshal General Crowder at Washington makes it the duty of certain men, recently appointed as government representatives in each district, to carry appeals from local boards to the district boards in all dependency cases. Judge C. W. Hanley has been named as the government’s representative ta- Jasper county and under this late ruling it will be his duty to take an appeal to the district board in all dependency cases where discharges by the local board are granted. The government has acted slowly in bringing home to the people the rigid character of the draft act. There has been much discussion of the exemption problem, based on ar> erronernip view of the law s purpose which assumed that married men, for instance, would be exempted without question and that the burden of military duty was. to be carried fully by the single men among the 10,000.000 registered. General Crowder has taken the position in recent rulings that married men will be exempted only when it is to the interest of the government that they should be excused from service. If the removal of the drafted man from his family circle would result in the family becoming a public burden, it is to the interest of the government tq leave him at home so as not to have to jcare for his dependents.