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 343 
 
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SELECTIVE 
 
 SERVICE 
 
 SYSTEM 
 
 ITS AIMS and 
 
 ACCOMPLISHMENTS 
 ITS FUTURE 
 
 WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1917 
 
REPLACING 
 
TO THE 
 
 LOCAL AND DISTRICT BOARDS. 
 
 LAST July we were confronted with the necessity of 
 placing 687,000 recruits in mobilization camps 
 just as fast as the factories of the country could furnish 
 uniforms and arms and the building enterprises of the 
 nation could erect the 16 great cantonments to receive 
 them. The time limit was clearly defined. The neces- 
 sity was pressing. We were committed to the principle 
 of selection. The field of selection comprised nearly 
 10,000,000 men. Unquestionably, of these 10,000,000 
 there were some particular 687,000 of them whose tak- 
 ing would least interfere with the industrial and eco- 
 nomic life of the nation. But, in the very nature of 
 things they could only have been searched out by exam- 
 ining the whole 10,000,000. 
 
 There were two ways to do this. One was to make a 
 graduated classification of men placing in the first class 
 those who, of the whole 10,000,000 could best be spared, 
 in the second class those who could next be spared, and 
 so forth through all the classes. Another way was to 
 make only two classes, but to so liberalize exemptions from 
 the first class as to make it comprise only about 687,000 
 men. Both methods required more time than we had at 
 our disposal, for we were warned that at about this time 
 of the year the camps would be ready to receive, arm, and 
 equip the first draft. It was very apparent that under 
 
 24337 17 (3) 
 
 M156959 
 
Page four 
 
 no new and untried system could 10,000,000 men be ex- 
 amined in such a short time. In this state of affairs there 
 was but one thing to do and that thing we did. We es- 
 tablished rules for exemption restrictive enough to permit 
 us to produce 687,000 selectives in 10 weeks' time and 
 yet liberal enough to protect industries, farms, govern- 
 mental organizations, and families from any very great 
 hardship. 
 
 Moving breathlessly, supported by the governors of 
 the States and by the members of our selection boards 
 with a patriotism, devotion, and unselfish zeal that 
 remains an inspiration to the Nation, we have accom- 
 plished our purpose within the time limits at our disposal. 
 
 We are in this war to attain victory. We have taken 
 one great step, but it is only one step. As our military 
 need for men grows so will our industrial need for labor 
 grow. We have hacked the first increment of our armies 
 out with a broadax because there was time for no greater 
 refinement. We must pare future increments away with 
 greater discrimination. The selective principle must be 
 carried to its logical conclusion and we must meet Prus- 
 sian efficiency with a greater American effectiveness. 
 We must consider the circumstances of all registrants. 
 We must arrange them in the order in which they can be 
 taken with the least disturbance and thus place behind 
 our battle lines sources of recruitment that will furnish 
 men as they are needed. This means a segregation of 
 registrants in classes arranged in the order of their 
 availability for military service. 
 
 Scientifically the greater the number of classes the less 
 
 would be the disturbance to our economic life. Practi- 
 
 t 
 
 cally and after an exhaustive study of our experience, we 
 
f a g e jive 
 
 find that the circumstances of registrants cause them to 
 fall quite naturally into five classes. 
 
 By the great drawing in Washington the order of avail- 
 ability for all men whose circumstances were equal was 
 determined. We shall not disturb this order unless some 
 great need of the Nation requires it. We shall make four 
 classes of temporary and contingent discharges, but within 
 each class (including the class of those immediately avail- 
 able) men shall stand in the order determined by the 
 drawing. 
 
 The unit for classification is the jurisdiction of a local 
 board. The first class in any jurisdiction will meet all 
 calls until it is exhausted, whereupon the second class 
 becomes available. 
 
 You have before you a sheet showing the classifica- 
 tion that must be accomplished. Without permitting 
 yourselves, for the moment, to be appalled by the magni- 
 tude of the task, I ask you to suppose that the 10,000,000 
 registrants in the United States have been segregated into 
 these five classes. In CLASS I we shall then have, in every 
 community, immediately available for military service 
 single men and a few married men whose removal will not 
 disturb the reasonably adequate support of their depend- 
 ents. In the industrial and agricultural aspect, we shall 
 have segregated into this class, men who have not espe- 
 cially fitted themselves for industrial or agricultural pur- 
 suits so that our only incursion into the labor supply will 
 affect but a small percentage of unskilled labor. 
 
 In CLASS II we find men who can be taken without 
 disturbing the support of any dependent and, as I shall 
 presently show you, if the necessity of drawing on CLASS II 
 arrives, we must demand even from agriculture and 
 
rage six 
 
 industry an adjustment to replace a small percentage of 
 skilled labor affected by the draft men who, while 
 occupying no pivotal or important position, can serve 
 industry or agriculture better than unskilled men. 
 
 Should the pinch of military necessity increase beyond 
 CI/ASS II, it would mean that the Nation would have to 
 begin to commit itself to hardship and to an adjustment 
 in agriculture and industry to meet the paramount neces- 
 sity. v We take in CLASS III a very small class of persons 
 upon whom others are dependent for support, but we do 
 not break up the closest and most sacred of the family 
 relationships. We also invade the field of agriculture and 
 industry to the extent of taking, in the small percentage 
 affected, men who have specialized themselves or who 
 occupy rather pivotal positions.. 
 
 In CLASS IV we find the men whom we shall take as a 
 last resort. Before that class is reached it is perfectly 
 safe to say that by the addition of other classes as to age, 
 say those who have attained 2 1 since registration day and 
 perhaps adding the classes of 18 and 19 and 20 years' old, 
 men, we shall have included two or three million men in 
 our available list, and thus have saved CLASS IV. 
 
 CLASS V comprises the field of absolute exempts. 
 
 There is ,one thought that 'I must impress to eradicate 
 an erroneous view that may be taken of this classification : 
 
 We are dealing in the field of labor supply. Presuming 
 that the labor supply of industry and agriculture com- 
 prises men between the ages of 18 and 50, and assuming, 
 for the purpose of this exposition, that there are i ,000,000 
 men of each of these ages, we are dealing with 32 classes, 
 appurtenant to agriculture and to the various industries. 
 The draft affects ten-thirty seconds of this supply or only 
 
Page seven 
 
 about 3 1 percent. Therefore, turning to CLASS II, when 
 we find skilled farm labor listed there, it does not mean 
 that when CLASS II is exhausted all skilled farm laborers 
 will have been taken. From these figures, it would seem 
 to mean that 3 1 per cent of all skilled farm labor will have 
 been taken. But even this figure is misleading. Without 
 the definite statistics that the present draft will eventually 
 afford I can say, I think, that within this class of skilled 
 laborers at least 62 per cent of those liable to draft will be 
 found in classes more deferred than CLASS II by reason of 
 dependents, alienage, and the like. The result is that 
 when we have exhausted CLASS II, we shall have taken 
 only 12 per cent of the skilled -? labor appurtenant to 
 agriculture. The same figures apply/, to other industries. 
 To raise an Army comprising hundreds of thousands of 
 men necessitates an inroad into the man power of the 
 Nation. We are committed to this war and we ought 
 to fight it in the most effective fashion possible to us. 
 The necessity of raising an Army is paramount. The 
 decrease in labor supply must be adjusted in some way 
 other than by shutting off recruitment. That it can be 
 adjusted there is no question. We see what England 
 has done, what France has done, and most of all what 
 Germany has done. The ,problem is not to maintain 
 the labor supply of agriculture and of every industry 
 intact. It is to make the withdrawal of men in the most 
 scientific manner possible. I think we have done that, 
 and that what is offered here is the basis for a nice balance 
 between our two necessities. I feel that we can go no 
 further. There are those who say that we must win this 
 war in the economic field, with an inference that the raising 
 of an Army is a side issue. I say to you that with any 
 
Page eight 
 
 greater inroads into the field of recruitment of our Army, 
 we shall be sending inferior men to the field. That, if 
 this Nation is not competent to make the slight adjust- 
 ment necessary to compensate for this scientific selection, 
 then it is not competent to enter this war. A vast 
 production in our farms and factories is necessary. It is 
 necessary in order to support military operations on the 
 field of battle. But certainly no man can urge in this day 
 of trial and sacrifice that this Nation should deliberately 
 neglect to make itself effective in the field of military 
 operation on the plea that our greatest contribution to 
 the cause of humanity is in attaining an economic su- 
 premacy. To do so would be to relegate the United States 
 to the role of sutler of the fighting nations. We shall, 
 of course, increase our production. We shall become 
 more and more effective as a Nation and we shall supply 
 our new armies and do all that can be expected of us to 
 supply the armies of our allies. But we shall not, under 
 that guise, confine our participation in this conflict to the 
 baking of bread and the sharpening of the swords of other 
 men. This war will be won militarily on the devoted 
 field of France. Doubtless it will be won by the side 
 which is able to place behind its army the prevailing 
 ounce of provision. But the blow that shatters the 
 German line and extinguishes autocracy from the face 
 of the earth will be the blow of man's right arm and not 
 the insidious stroke of a shrewd trader. 
 
 Our Selection Boards have done a great thing for this 
 Nation, but they must do a greater thing. The task 
 accomplished is scarcely one-tenth the importance of 
 the task which remains before you. For this great work 
 there stands here a national system, called into being 
 
V 
 Page n in t 
 
 three months ago and erected almost like Aladdin's palace, 
 in a night. There are nearly 15,000 members of local 
 and district boards. With their assistants there are 
 considerably over twice that number of persons engaged 
 a greater numerical force than is contained in a combatant 
 division of soldiers. They are pioneers. They have 
 blazed their own path. They are trained in the work and 
 familiar with the law. They have become an essential 
 and highly specialized and important part of the war 
 organization of this Nation. The Selective Service Sys- 
 tem is as essential to that organization as is the Army 
 which it produces. It is the balance between the mili- 
 tary and the industrial need of the Nation and stands as 
 a source of supply to one and a shield of protection to the 
 other. It can not be replaced. Any break in its ranks 
 would be an act of even greater harm to the Nation than 
 accrues when a soldier abandons his regiment or a sailor 
 his ship. It would be as inexcusable to dismiss, disrupt, 
 or replace this organization as to attempt to replace or 
 dismiss a division on the field of France. Most of you 
 are without the military age yet you may canvas the field 
 of all that you could have done to serve you country 
 outside of the fighting forces and you will find no more 
 valuable thing than what you are doing. 
 
 The examination of the first 2,500,000 registrants has 
 taken you from your occupations and the winning of your 
 daily bread. No one knows better than I the burdens 
 you have borne under our new and necessarily crude 
 system. 
 
 As we built and bolstered during the early organ- 
 izational period I would shudder whenever necessity 
 demanded that I send out to the overburdened boards 
 
Page ten 
 
 new rulings, amendments, orders, and yet it became 
 clearer and clearer that we must retain the services of 
 all for this new and greater task. 
 
 The conclusion was overwhelming. The whole system 
 must be revised in the light of our experience. The bur- 
 dens must be made bearable the lives of members of 
 Selection Boards livable. I called some members of 
 boards from various parts of the country to Washington 
 and went carefully over the situation. We evolved a new 
 plan for the process of selection. 
 
 This brings me to the most pleasurable part of the 
 message I have for you. With all the urgency of your 
 country's call upon you, I feel that if I could not come 
 here with a promise of your deliverance from the over- 
 whelming demands we have made upon you, I should 
 hesitate to ask you to continue, but I think I can demon- 
 strate in a few words that we have removed the burden 
 that you have hitherto borne. 
 
 In the new plan 182 forms which served to bewilder 
 both you and the registrants and to increase your work 
 have been abolished. Their place has been taken by 19 
 which you will be called upon to use. Even this state- 
 ment gives no idea of the reduction of clerical labor that 
 has been accomplished. For the use of registrants there 
 is a single form, a Questionnaire. The registrant is called 
 upon to answer a series of questions that searches his entire 
 industrial, economic, and family relation. Bach set of 
 questions is integrated with the claim of classification to 
 which it pertains. On the face of the Questionnaire is a 
 summary of its contents that almost compels the con- 
 clusion to be drawn from it. 
 
Page eleven 
 
 The scope of your labor will be reduced to a decision 
 of facts which will be presented for your consideration 
 without a great searching of papers and sifting of obscure 
 and unsatisfactory affidavits. The Questionnaire practi- 
 cally classifies itself. In my opinion your task was ren- 
 dered burdensome and exhausting by a vast necessity for 
 doing purely mechanical and clerical work. We have 
 obviated this. The burdensome clerical part of your 
 task is absolutely removed from your shoulders. 
 
 The new method of making physical examinations is 
 another labor saver. Only those persons immediately 
 needed, classified in CLASS I, are to be physically examined 
 now. Others are to be physically examined only when 
 the classes preceding the one in which they have been 
 placed is exhausted. There is no double physical exami- 
 nation before the L,ocal Board. If the examining physi- 
 cian rejects the registrant, or, if the registrant is not 
 satisfied, or, if the examining physician is in doubt, the 
 registrant is to be sent before a medical advisory board 
 reasonably convenient to each local board and composed 
 of about seven specialists who will conduct an exhaus- 
 tive reexamination, of the results of which there need be 
 little doubt. There is also to be established in each 
 locality, a Legal Advisory Board comprising practically 
 all th'ie lawyers in the community, and this society is to 
 furnish without compensation all information and advice 
 that registrants may require. Local Boards should refer 
 all requests for information and for assistance in prepar- 
 ing Questionnaires to these associations. This, I hope, 
 will relieve one of the most tedious functions of the mem- 
 bers of the boards. 
 
Page twelve 
 
 I have consulted a considerable number of members of 
 Selection Boards who advised me in the preparation of 
 the new regulations. It is the estimate of all of them 
 that the present method will reduce the work of mem- 
 bers of boards by 70 per cent. In this state of affairs, 
 it is hoped that members of boards can attend to this 
 most important duty without making too great an inroad 
 upon the time necessary for them to attend their respec- 
 tive callings. 
 
 As I have said, the Selective Service System is an 
 integral and necessary part of this Government, and you, 
 as members of it, are as essential in the places to which 
 it has best served the common good to call upon you as 
 are the soldiers whom you have sent to camp. You are, 
 in effect, a part of the Army of the United States in that 
 you are the sources of its supply. The Nation is rapidly 
 becoming a great system, and if this part of it were dis- 
 turbed now it is not too much to say that that system 
 would be shattered so effectively that it would take 
 weeks, if not months, to repair the damage. That, I 
 think, is too clear to require further exposition. But 
 there is a further thought that has not yet been empha- 
 sized. 
 
 We, as a Nation, have learned much in the last few 
 months. We have, in the words of the President, 
 " drawn close in one compact front against a common 
 foe" and we have found ourselves. We have learned the 
 sacrifice that must be made to make our Nation safe 
 from aggression. The duty of citizenship has taken on a 
 new light for all of us and there has been no hesitation 
 among our people in performing that duty. Whether 
 Germany has taught us or whether we have learned it 
 
Page thirteen 
 
 ourselves, we know one thing so clearly and so well that- 
 we will never again have doubt of it. The volunteer 
 method of raising an army for war is gone. It will never 
 return. The principle of selection has been tried and 
 proved by our people. I am led to believe that they 
 approve it with substantial unanimity. If it is good for 
 this time of peril, it is good for all future emergencies. 
 The wonder is that a people so devoted to business effici- 
 ency should have hesitated to adopt it. It is of the 
 essence of democracy and national effectiveness. The 
 present method for its expression integrates with our 
 political system so perfectly, responds so smoothly and so 
 well to our dual form of State and National control that 
 it would be calamitous to have it impaired. The prin- 
 ciple of selection is established. The system for selection 
 improved as we can improve it must become, and remain 
 a permanent part of our governmental system for war. 
 It is a link which binds closer our Union of States and our 
 resulting General Government. It is for this reason that 
 I say that we are standing not at the portals of a past but 
 rather at the threshold of a future. 
 
 
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