Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-07
THE NEW DRAFT
Its Meanings 10 the Country and to the
Man Past Thirty.one

smooth Inc tasks TO which he gave him.
| self, his years and his enthusasms are
well under way, perhaps half completed.
| His habits and associations are fixed
When such a man is turned off sud-
denly at right angles from all this and
shifted to far and unfamiliar plane of
existence he is likely to experience a sort
of hardship that is unknown to those
who are subjected to similar change
during the period of happy irresponsi-
bility that is the best of youth. The
further man has progressed toward
forty-fve the greater will be his sacri-
flee, therefore, when he is called to mill
tary service.
Many, favored by circumstances, will
be able to join gladly in the big ad
venture. And many will feel that they
are at the end of their world-forced to
leave tasks and ambitions unprotected
and unrealized like half built house,
open to wind and weather. In the lives
of great many men more than thirty
one are subtle bonds that chain them to
the familiar eXistence-ties that are
mighty because of the very tenderness
that the years have given them. The
new draft law, which will become
effective with the general registration on
Thursday, involves for the draft boards,
therefore, an altogether new set of re-
sponsbilities. And. it brings the nation
close to the peak and climax of its spr-
itual relation to the war.
Of ho Ia
tors that may be involved in the cases
of new eligibles doubtless prompted the
War Department to leave the way to ex-
emption open for those who can state
adequate reasons clearly Wide discre
tion has been given the draft boards
probably for this same reason. The best
reasons for exemption are not always the
obvious ones. 1t is to the everlasting
glory of innumerable young men-and
innumerable young women-that many
of the youthful soldiers who plunged into
the war at the outset were newly mar
exemption. But they had one advantage
over many of the men in the new draft.
They had the years on their side. They
didn't face the prospect of beginning life
all over again--a little late. 1t must
seem, therefore, that men touching
forty" will be justified if they feel less
reluctance in seeking exemption for
cause than men were accustomed to feel
in the early stages of the selective serv-
ice.
The new man-power law is nothing
more or less than an imperative measure
of self f-defense. 1t is wisely conceived
and it will be wisely administered. Re-
garded without emotion, it may be said
to represent the settled purpose of the
nation to assure it's safety, now and in
the future, at any cost. Americans are
accustomed to the realization that the
interests of the individual are, in the
present hour, secondary to the interests
of the republic. And it is worth remem-
bering that no sacrifice that any man
may make now is comparable to the sac
rifices that would inevitably be imposed
upon him were the war to be lost to the
Allies.
1t is by processes like those that will
begin on Thursday that We shall, one
day or another, realize something of the
cost of the war to those who have fought
it for US as we'll as for themselves. In
England all men up to fifty-five have
been drafted. In France almost every
man, woman and child has worked some
how at the war for three years. So far,
in America, the war has been but an
incident to most persons. Now we are
making faster time than any of the
nations allied with US. And the unity of
America has been an inspiration to the
world We are actually beginning to be
unselfsh. Here and there you will find
| furtive profiteers. There are politicians
who still squabble and plot among them
| selves for their own interests. They will
| be dealt with later on. The rest of the
country is prepared to make sacrifices.
1t rests with the draft boards in the
| present instance to make this general
| task a shade easier for the individual. 1t
| will be no easy thing for the boards to
| pass wisely upon the claims for exemp-
| tion, which are sure to be numerous in
the cases of older men. The War De-
partment has announced its own exemp-
! tions in classes of men considered indis-
pensable to the nations strength and its
interests. The draft boards will have to
go deeper. They will be led, doubtless,
| to contemplation of many of the remote
and poignant concerns of life, to judg-
ment of potentialities, plans and ambi-
tions. And if they have wisdom and dis
cernment the new draft law will be freed
| of it's only sting.