New Britain herald., 1918-05-23
WORK OR Fight, is
CROWDER'S UKASE
Continued from First Page)


"There is popular demand for or
ganiza ton of manpower but no direct
draft could De imposed at present
steps to prohibit idleness and
non effective occupation will be well
coined by our people.
We shall give the idlers and men
not effectively employed the choice
between military service and effective
employment. Every man, in the
draft age, at least, must work or
fight.
This is not alone a war Of mill
tary manoeuvre. 1t is a dea dly con-,
test of industries and mechanics.
Germany must not be thought of as
merely possessing an army; we must
think of her as being an arny--an
army in which every factory and loom
in the empire is recognized part in
a complete machine running night
and day at terrific speed. We must
make of ourselves the same sort of
effective machine.
ct is enough to ask what would
! happen if every man in the nation
turned his hand to effective work. We
| must make ourselves effective. We
! must make vast Withdrawals for the
army and immediately close up the
ranks of industry behind the gap with
! an accelerating production of every
| useful thing in necessary measure.
| How is that to be done? The answer
is plain. The first step towards the
| solution of the difficulty is to pro-
/ hibit engagement by able bodied men
in the field Of hurtful employment,
! idleness or Intellectual employment
| and thus induce and persuade the vast
wasted excess into useful fields.
1.-THE very situa ton we are now
! considering, however, offers great
possibilities in improving the draft
as we'll as great possibilities for the
! com position of the labor situation by
effective administration of the draft
| Considering the selective service law
we see two principal causes of de-
| ferment to the call to military serv-
! ice exemption and the order numbers
| assigned by lot. The exemptions
themselves fall into two conspicuous
categorics, dependency and industrial
employment. One protects domestic
relations, the other the economic in
terests of the nation. Between the
two there is an inevitable hiatus, for
it is demonstrably true that thousands
if not millions of dependency exemp-
tons have no effect on individual de-
Torment whatever.
Zone of the unanswera BILE criti-
cisms of the draft has been that it
takes men from the farms and from
all useful employments and marches
them past crowds of idlers and loafers
away to the army. The remedy is
sim ple--to couple the industrial basis
with other grounds for exemption and
to require that any man pleading ex-
! emption on any ground has also to
E-I, hot !, ,t,-i1, offo
~ to the industrial welfare of the ma
ton.
THE regulation itself makes plain
! the determination of the war depart
ment. The great organization of
local and district boards which has
! hardly accomplished a notable work.
| may be relied upon to catch the
spirit of the movement and sorely
! needed manpower will soon be flowing
! into the fields of useful endeavor or
. into the other direction of military
! strength"
Professional Sportsmen Included.
Baseball players as we'll as jockeys,
professional golfers and other pro-
! fessonal sportsmen, General Crowder
said today, will be affected by the
regulations if strictly enforced. Gen
eral Crowder said he did not desire
to make specific rulings at this
time and would make rulings only
| when cases came to him from local
boards after July !.
Washington, May %. - Sla ckers
who leave the country to escape the
draft will be prosecuted under the
selective service act on their return,
Attorney General Gregory announced
today.
'It has been brought to my atten-
ton" said the attorney general
statement, that number of men of
CONSUMPTION age have left. and that
even now occasionally others are Ieav-
ing the country to evade military ser
vice.
''SlaCkerS are presumably 1abOring
under the deluson that by securing a
temporary residence in another coun-
try for the duration of the war they
may escape their military obligations,
and upon the termination Of the wal
/ may return hero to enjoy the fruits of
sacrifice in which they had no part.
when this struggle is completed
| however, such men on seeking admis-
sion to the United States will find
! that it will be necessary to stand tria
! on indictments charging them with
violation Of the selcctive service act
These trials will be vigorously prose
cuted and the maximum penalty pro
vided by the act will be urged upor
conviction.
''Thc passage of time will not pre-
, vent the bringing of prosecutions
Such non-registrants and delinquents
! either must return for military service
p or become permanent eNpatriates will
: all future rights of United State.
} citizenship denied them.
r THE government at no time here
: after will be inclined to grant an,
general amnesty to such men
1T should also be clearly under