could be most readily spared from the pursuit
of other industries and occupations. There being a universal
obligation to serve in time of war, the Administration felt the need
of being empowered to select men for military service and select
others to do the rest of the nation's work, either by keeping them in
their existing employment, if that employment was useful for war
purposes, or utilizing their services in a like field.

"The volunteer system does not do this," he said. "When men choose
themselves they sometimes choose without due regard to their other
responsibilities. Men may come from the farms or from the mines or
from the factories or centers of business who ought not to come but
ought to stand back of the armies in the field and see that they get
everything that they need and that the people of the country are
sustained in the meantime."

Registration day, which was fixed for June 5, 1917, partook of the
character of an election day. The young manhood of the country of the
prescribed ages trooped to the registration places of their districts
like voters depositing ballots at polling booths. It was a national
roll call of the pick of civilian manhood available for military duty,
and yielded an enrollment of 9,649,938 from which the first army was
to be drafted.

"The registration," reported the Government, "was accomplished in a
fashion measuring up to the highest standards of Americanism. The
young men came to the registration places enthusiastic; there was no
hint of a slacking spirit anywhere, except in a few cases where
misguided persons had been prevailed upon to attempt to avoid their
national obligation."

The machinery for the selective draft had merely been started. Only
the groundwork had been laid. The principal operation--the draft
itself--had to be undertaken, and the process was a slow one. Half the
men who registered claimed exemption from military service for a
multitude of reasons, but as not more than 6 per cent were to be
chosen to compose the first citizen army, this was not important even
if most of the exemption claims were justified and allowed.

The outstanding fact was that the registrants were all on an equal
footing and that their mustering brought nearer the realization of the
President's dream of a "citizenry trained" without favoritism or
discrimination. The son of the millionaire and of the laborer, the
college-bred man and the worker forced to earn his living from early