New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-18

Inc uIsVIlSI appear DOafu, OF Wnlcn
Charles Evans Hughes is chairman,
decided ffty-fve draft cases yesterday
in two and a half hours, and six of
these were applications for passports.
The board then adjourned until Mon
Gay morning.
Passports are being refused all citi-
zens of draft age unless they produce
certificates from their local board. The
only cases approved by the appeal board
yesterday were those of men who
produced certificates from their local
boards showing that they had failed to
pass the required physical examination
or whose order numbers were so far
down in the draft list that they would
not be reached prior to their return to
this country. All such were required
to give their word that they would re-
turn when called.
Few Appeals Approved
That the board intends to pursue the
policy of reversing the decisions Of the
local boards only when appeals are ac-
companied by affidavits and evidence of
the most convincing character is shown
by the fact that only five of twenty,
eight exemption appeals were approved.
Thirteen out of twenty-one applications
for industrial exemption were denied.
The important question as to whether
medical students will be exempted has
not yet been finally decided by the COM
mittee of fourteen of the nine district
boards of the state, of which Mr..
Hughes is chairman. Before leaving
his office shortly before>6 o'clock last
night, Mr.. Hughes said he would make
public the report of the committee
later. It is probable that a scheme will
be worked out whereby the students
will be accepted for service and then
will be detailed by President Wilson
for duty" at their respective colleges.
DR.. S. S. Goldwater, chairman of the
committee on hospital and medical IA
cilities of the Mayors Committee on
National Defence, made public a letter
from Provost Marshal General B. H.
Crowder in which the latter states that
consideration is being given the sug-
gestion made by President Nicholas
Murray Butler OF Columbia University
for granting furloughs to drafted medi
cal students in order that they may
complete their education and serve as
army surgeons.
Text of Crowder Letter
81 will add merely" General Crowder's
letter reads, "that the statement in
your telegram-yiZ, that 80 per cent
of all medical students are in the first
or second drafts apparently based
upon figures appearing in The Journal
Of the American Medical Association
for August II, 1917. but that such fig
ures are erroneous. and are on their
face impossible to be true. Out Of the
10000 900 persons of draftable age. the
present call extends only to 100000, or
one-fourteenth. Therefore, it is only
one-fourteenth or thereabouts, of medi
cal students that can be taken on the
present draft"
General Crowder's assumption is
based on the theory that medical stu
dents must be taken in the same pro-
portion as workers and all other groups
/ combined" said DR.. Goldwater. "This
assumption is erroneous. Local evil
dence fully supports the returns pre-
pared by the American Medical Asso-
citation.
an the College of Physicians and
/ Surgeons in this city there are ia STU
dents in the senior class, or the class
/ of '16. OF these thirty-fve already
/ have been called. In the class Of 10
there are 1T students and of these
/ twenty-five have been called. Medical
students are nearly all of draft age.
/ They are all in excellent physical con-
dition, and almost invariably they are
without dependents. Therefore. they
are without any claim for exemption
under the existing law"
More Physicians Needed
As to the drafting of physicians, quite
the opposite view is being taken by the
medical section of the New York state
Committee on National Defence, which