The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-01-31
LATE MARRIAGES ARE NOT BAR TO EXEMPTION PLEA Secretary Baker Informs New York Board of New
 Ruling on Such Gases. BURDEN OF PROOF
 IS UP TO BOARDS Must Show That Registrant Married in Order to
 Evade Army Duty.

New York, Jan. 31 - Newton D. Baker, secretary of war, in a letter yesterday to Charles E. Hughes chairman of the district board of this city, declared that he disagreed with the boards recent ruling that mar rlaees since May IS, 1917 are tG he disregarded as causes for deferred | classification in the draft unless the bridegroom had already been re- | Jected for military service or exempt | ed for some other reason. The effect of the secretary's com the governor of every state, according | to draft officials here, is to place the | burden of proof that late marriages are "slacker marriages on the local draft boards This is regarded as a reversal of the decision handed down by thed istrict board in this city last Friday, when it announced that all marriages entered into since May IS last, the date of the passage of the draft act, would be ignored, unless | 'by proof of facts the registrant shows l that he entered into the subsequent marriage at a time when he was jus tified in believing that he was no longer subject to the obligation inn posed by the selectivs service law"
 As 8 result of Secretary Bakers or der the district board promptly re- turned the questionnaires in all late marriage cases to the local boards, I with instructions to reconsider the facts in the light of the new ruling
 Lewis De1affeld, of the appeal body proposed that the district board re- view it's decisions in the 300 cases of this kind it has already passed on, but former Attorney-General George | W. Wickersham and Louis Marshall | opposed making the new interpreta- tion retroactive. The board took vote and was deadlocked. It is under stood, however, that individual reg istrants affected will be able to have their cases reopened on application | to the local boards:
 The only comment that members of the district board would make for | publication was: ''The Secretary Of War is the general and we are merely privates. We shall follow 1nstruc- l tions''
 MT. Bakers letter, which was dated Jan. 28, the day he testified before the Senate committee on military af- fairs, was the first personal commu- nication the Secretary of War made to the district board. Heretofore Major General Crowder, the provost marshal general, has issued the in structions.
 Ever since the passage of the se- Ilective service law draft officials have been troubled with the question of late marriages. In the first draft the district board here arbitrarily | turned down every marriage since May IS as a reason for exemption.
 Secretary Bakers letter follows: 1 My Dear MT. Justice Hughes:
 The provost marshal general has
 brought to my attention the rul-
 ing of your board on the subject of
 marriages since May IS. I agree |. that everything possible to be done to secure uniformity of de-
 cision among local boards ought
 to be done and regret very much
 that I find myself unable to agree
 with all that your board has to say
 on this subject.
 The effect of the ruling, as I
 understand it, is that unless, by i ) service or prior exemption, a reg
 istrant has had fair ground for be-
 lief that he would not be called for military service, then any
 marriage relation contracted by
 him since May IS will be disre- ; garded as creating a condition of
 dependency meriting deferred
 classification
 The argument is cogent, but it
 proceeds upon an assumption that
 the effect of the selective service law was to set up deterrent to
 marriage among registrants at
 least to the extent of warning ? them that such marriages would
 be disregarded as a ground for de- ferment, and in this cannot con- : cur.
 About the time of registration,
 and again just after the drawing in Washington, reports of thou
 sands of E'slacker marriages were rife. Records of marriage license
 bureaus bore out these reports, and when the selection boards be- l gan to consider exemption claims it became necessary to issue Rul-
 ing (a), which directed zoards to scrutinize marriages recently con
 tracted, and especially those con-
 tracted after a registrant had been
 called for examination. This rul-
 ing was plainly intended to reach
 only marriages contracted with a
 primary purpose of evading mii- 7 tary service.
 The ruling was carried over into
 the new regulations with the ex- s press statement that the effect of v the selective service law was not s to suspend the institution of mar
 riage among registrants and with a. particular mention of marriages
 hastily effected since May IS. |. considered this regulation per
 sonaIly, and my intention was only
 to draw the attention of local a boards to the equivocal class of Il marriages I have mentioned. It a was not intended to require boards to consider all marriages since eI May IS as equivocal, and this, I t take it, is the precise difference
 between the ruling of the District
 Board and my view of the regula-
 tions.
 In Inf opinion, each case must
 be considered in the light of it's
 own circumstances, and whenever :. the board is convinced that the , marriage was not entered into e with a primary purpose of evad-
 ing military service the claim for
 deferred classification should be
 allowed.
 1T In my opinion, each case must a District Board for the City of New e York is more harsh than is con- W sistan+ with the purpose and in-