The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-06-02
VOLUNTEER WORK IS BADLY NEEDED BY
 REGISTRATION BOARD
Secretary Pepperman Writes Letter of Appreciation to Woman's Board of National Council
 of Defense

The urgent necessity of volunteer work in connection with the classifica- tion of registrants is stressed in communication from the local exen'p- ton board to the woman's committed of the council of defense.
 It is hoped that the publication of this appeal will result in ready re- sponse from those who have little time to give their government in this great crisis Because of inability to have these classification made prompt Iy. there is confusion and lack of eff ciency which the government is very anxious to have removed.
 The communication relative to this subject is as follows:
 Office Local Boards, Birmingham,
 May 31, 1918, woman's Committee, National Council
 of Defense, Birmingham. Ala:
 wish to thank you most sincerely in behalf of the government for the valuable assistance that your commit tee has rendered in getting up our industrial classification cards for us. This work is undoubtedly the most i'm portant feature of the draft. Tn the past. men were inducted lnto service ana WHeH L1ty ciiANoN 1e Se>ii'f they were then asked questions as to their occupations. This required a great deal of time, and after the loss of several months, we had one camp full of men of an industry badly needed at another camp.
 To save time whi,h is more valua- ble than money in war times, the gov ernment figured out scheme by which every one of the 1o,0o0,oo0 reg I II o-<,fft tnA Q n- dex card, this card showing in a few words his occupation for the past 10 years, his age, education. and in fact give enough information to enable the government to know before he Is in | ducted exactly where he is most needed | thereby making it possible that as soon as a man reached a camp his clas- sification was there before him and his duties ready to be assigned.
 | This was a tremendous undertaking. It was an undertaking the govern ment could not buy with money; the l cost would have been enormous and the class of labor that could have been employed would not have been satis- | factory. The President of the United States over his own signature. sent out a circular letter calling upon the teachers of the United States to do this work. Tn Birmingham all six of the boards are consolidated. which gave us approximately 10000 cards to clas- sify.
 The teachers responded nobiy and did approximately one-third of the work up to the time that Birmingham and Jefferson county had the misfor- tune to lose three of It's best schools This loss disorGanixed tho school sys- ten, to such an extent that tho teach CTS had to drop the matter The work 1 then came stand-still for a couple of months The department in Wash ington was writing every week that we were one of the few boards thai had not completed the work We tried through the press to get assistance te carry this work forward.
 | We have promised the department that we would have the work complet- ed by June 15. At the present time the work Is slightly over half com. pleted. We thank you most heartily far your cooperation in tho past ano a,n simply writing this letter explain ing tho importance of the work ant hoping you can ret sufficient helpers to complete the work by Juno 15, al we have promised. Yours truly B. A PkprERMAN,
 Secretary.