Negro’s PARTRIOTIC attitude—­selective draft in effect—­features and
results—­bold reliance on faith in A people—­no color line
drawn—­distribution of registrants by states—­negro and white
registrations compared—­negro percentages higher—­claimed fewer
exemptions—­inductions by states—­better physically than whites—­tables,
facts and figures.

As stated in a previous chapter, the Negro’s real opportunity to show his patriotic attitude did not come until the passage of the compulsory service law; selective draft, was the name attached to it later and by which it was generally known.

On May 18, 1917, the day the law was enacted by congress, no advocate of preparedness could with confidence have forecasted the success of it.  There were many who feared the total failure of it.  The history of the United States disclosed a popular adherence to the principle of voluntary enlistment, if not a repudiation of the principle of selection or compulsory military service.

It was to be expected that many people would look upon the law as highly experimental; as an act that, if it did not produce grave disorders in the country, would fall short of the results for which it was intended.  It was fortunate for the country at this time, that the military establishment possessed in the person of General Crowder, one who had made a special study of selective drafts and other forms of compulsory service, not alone in this country, but throughout the nations of the world and back to the beginning of recorded history.  He had become as familiar with all phases of it as though it had been a personal hobby and lifetime pursuit.

The law was extremely plain and permitted of no guessing or legal quibbling over its terms.  It boldly recited the military obligations of citizenship.  It vested the president with the most complete power of prescribing regulations calculated to strike a balance between the industrial, agricultural and economic needs of the nation on the one hand and the military need on the other.

Within 18 days between May 18, when the law was approved, and June 5, the day the president had fixed as registration day, a great, administrative machine was built.  Practically the entire male citizenship of the United States within the age limits fixed by law, twenty-one to thirty years inclusive, presented itself at the 4,000 enrollment booths with a registered result of nearly 10,000,000 names.  The project had been so systematized that within 48 hours almost complete registration returns had been assembled by telegraph in Washington.

The order in which the ten-million registrants were to be called was accomplished on July 20 by a great central lottery in Washington.