New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-06
One in Five Will Fight,
Draft Tables Now Show
Twenty, Not rs, Per Cent Waive Exemption
Twenty-seven Per Cent Found Un6t-Boards
Getting Better Average Than Was Expected

Deputy Attorney General Roscoe S.
Conkling's staff and the district ex-
emptors are on the trail of the missing
records, the theft of which Is believed
to have been engineered by or in be-
half OF registrants who thus hoped to
circumvent the draft. Marshal Nc
Carthy made a personal trip to the
boards headquarters last night, and
then went to Mr.. Conkling's Office, in
the state arsenal, at Thirty-ffth Street
and Seventh Avenue. Clerks from the
arsenal were dispatched to open up the
No. 113 headquarters, which the mar
shall had found locked, and to check
up the records left behind by the
thieves with the call list.
To Round Up Registrants
In this way it will be easy to learn
whose papers are gone. Deputy mar
shals will begin a roundup this morn
ing Of every man examined for whom
a record is not found in the boards
cabinet.
The marshal is at a loss TO account
for the fact that, important as the
missing papers are, the one which led
TO exposure of the theft had found its
way into the possession of two small
boys. The boys, when they approached
/ Benjamin Bubin, of 247 Fifth Street,
and Louis Cooperman, of 1876 Second
Street, Saturday night, did not seem to
know what the record was or where it
had come from.
"Want to go to the country" asked
one of the boys.
"Why?" Bubin wanted to know.
Here's a ticket" said the boy.
He gave an envelope to Bubin, who
found in it the examination certificate
Of a draft registrant who had passed
his physical examination
"Where did you get this?" Bubin de-
manded.
Found il in the street." said the boy.
Bubin and his friend. who had been
standing across the street from the
boards headquarters. walked over and
turned in the certificate toNHenry We'll,
clerk of the board. We'll, much ex-
cited, ran to the cabinet in which the
filled in blanks had been filed. Two
certificates were lying on the floor and
twenty more were missing from the
cabinet.
Theft an Easy Matter
Serious as the theft Is in point of
possible punishment and in considera-
tion of its vital effect in the lives of
regstrants further down the call list
had it gone undiscovered, its accom-
plishment was a simple matter. In
business Offices records of infinitely
less Importance are guarded with in
finitely more care. The local boards
have no safes, and TO many of them the
government issued not even a cabinet.
No special watch is kept over the
cabinets, and the wonder is that there
have not been other thefts of records
in the crowded and undermanned head
quarters. Possibly there have been.
That possibility is so much of a proba-
bility, in fact, that an order for a gen.
eral checking up is looked for to 60
out to-day.
The district board for New York City,
which will consider claims for exemp-
ton, has at last become a fact. Gov
ernor Whitman nominated thirty mem
bers for il more than week ago and
President Wilson made the appoint
ments Saturday. Yesterday the few
members who were in the city received
at their homes kilograms from the
Governor notifying them Of their ap-
pontment. -',l q