Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-11-17
SWEEPINGCHANGE
MADE in DRAFT
LAW REGULATION

General announcement of the
sweeping changes in the military draft
law, prepared by Provost Marshal
General Crowder, was received in yes
terday's mail from Washington. The
plan divides the remaining nine mil
lion registrants on the mainland into
five separate classes, and will be used
in the next call, probably about Janu-
airy /. .---.
With the new system, much of the
complicated machinery that the local
exemption boards would be required
to handle for Hawaii's draft under the
first method will be done away with
and the operations of exempting reg
istrants become little more than rub
Der stamp proceedings.
The classes in general will be d.
vided about thus: ~..
Class Bachelors without de-
pendents: men with selfsupport-
ing wives and any others with no
claims for dependency. ....@
Class Highly skilled farm Ia
borers; men with wives who
could work, and others of only
slight dependency.
Class 3-Men with aged moth
ers; highly skilled operators in
war industries.
Class 4.-Men with large fam
lilies dependent upon them, say
with a wife and three or four
children. - ....I
Class 5-Legless men, paralytics
and others of the military unfit.
i Id -
class two next, If needed, and so on.
In each class the men would be sub
ject to call in the turn which the orig
inal drawing gave them.
Every registered man will kno
his exact position and be able to ar
range his affairs accordingly and that
no man deemed necessary in any i'm
portant industry or needed at home
to support his family will be called to
the colors. ~.
The local boards will Immediately
complete a list of all the registered
man under their Jurisdiction and tol
each of these they will mail ques. |
Gornaire resembling a very rigid |
eross-examination. Men will be allowed !
seven days in which to return the |
QUESTIONABLE to the board, which will
Immediately assign them to their re-
spective classes. Each mans draft |
order number will be entered on his I
QUESTIONABLE and will determine his /
order in the class column at the local
board headquarters.
The success of the plan depends up
on the completeness of the question.
10 hn
by the registered men have been
worked out with infinite care from the
vast fund of information cleaned from
the first use of the draft machinery.
Included in the plans of the govern
ment, it is understood, is a provision
which will place the services of a
trained attorney at the disposal of ev-
cry registrant to assist him in making
his answers. Presumably all the ma
chinery Of affidavits to support claims
for exemptions also has been absorbed
into this document, making the work
ing of the registrant in getting his
situation properly before the board
for consideration far less aIduous. I
This new plan, General CreWder
points out, settles the vexing question
of continuing the physical examina-
tion of registrants until all have been
classified in this way. Presumably it
will be necessary to examine men I'M
der the new plan only when called
upon, or, if greater speed can be Sc
cured in that way, to examine and
classify physically all members of the
class that is under call.
A point not made clear in General
Crowder's statement is how rotation
numbers of the drawing to fix the or
der of military liability are to be ap-
piled. Since no abandonment of that
means of fixing the place of each in
dividual in any class is announced, it
seems certain that the rotation num-