The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-02-06
EXTENSIVE PLANS FOR DRASTIC WORK OR FIGHT RULES
 GIVEN IN REPORT
Specific Plans Were Before Bpker When War Ended For Reaching Every In- dustrial Stacker In
 Entire Land
By AssocIatcd Press

the final annual report on the selective service system, pre- pared by Maj. Gen. Enoch H.. Crowder, provost marshal gen eral, and made public today, contained only None specific recommendation 1 that the draft machinery be used to take decennial census-the 600-page document gave the first inkling of drastic extensions of the work or fight regulations which had been planned just before hostilities ended. The report showed that specific plans were before Secretary Baker last No vember under which a minimum working week for the essential industries would have been fixed in order that industrial slackers'' might be reached, and that plans were shaping for the mandatory deferment of registrants in essential in- dustry, denying them absolutely the right of military service A scheme for super vising labor distribution through an industrial furlough system also was being evolved.
 ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF SYSTEM As to the accomplishments of the se- lective system, credit for which was giv- en to the patriotic devotion of thou sands upon thousands'' of American men and women who aided, General Crowd CT said:
 tI,z ,fu curately to assess them. How great part American seiective service played in the drama of the world war, history alone can tell
 '"To enroll for service over 24.0o0,00 to mobilize a selected army of more than 9 500, ,O00, 8 million of them within the space of 90 days: to have presently avail able for military duty 100000 additional | fighting men; to classify this vast group of manpower. in the order of its military and industrial importance so as to pre- serve the domestic and industrial life Of | the nation, to speed up wartime activities | to maintain them in a status of maximum efficient production, and to pave the way for a speedy return to normal peace time pursuits while recruiting the ruI fighting strength of the nation-these are l results which would be instantly re- iected as impossible did not the actual | facts as irrefutable testimonials Of their accomplishment
 FEASIBILITY DEMONSTRATED 1 In suggesting that the census might hereafter be taken through the seiectiV' | service machinery, General Crowder said | the feasibility of many theories diver l gent from pre-war conception of things has been demonstrated, although the 1 question of how far these principais ] should be projected after the war was "a 1 matter of vital national importance lie 1 said, however, that he believed the ma ] chjnery for the census wholly practica| l and added, that since 13,OOOWo were re- !, gistered in a single day and 24,0o,ooo Tn i four days. including a complete survey
 and classification of their domestic ane industrial status, the census data should he obtainable in days instead Of months as is now the case.
 The draft regulations toward "hich General Crowder was moving when the war er led, he said. included the manda- tory industrial deferment because we | had almost reached the time when It
 VI ouId have been necessary to make it | as impossible for the man deferred TOT Industrial reasons to secure military ser vice as it had been for the reglstrahts class one to avoid it.
 1 Conservation of labor already engaged | in the essential industries would nave been provided. the report said, put as the nation was not prepared for an in-
 dustral draft, the equally necessary Iaugmentation of labor had to be solved lin some other way. It was here that extension of the work or fight principle land of the industrial furlough would lhave ben invoked. The shifting or iaoor lin the esential industries would nave ! been stopped by calling men into the military service and furloughing them only for the time they engaged in par 1 ticular industry.
 r MINIMUM WORKING WEEK | Another element of the plan was aimed at Industrial slackers" linen who work ed day or two at war wages only 10 Hay off for succeeding days The min- linum working week of eight hours a day. the report showed, would have been evolved and the furloughs of men who failed to give that weeks work with out proving good cause would lave been cancelled.
 On November Il. 1918. the report show ed the United States had in it's military land naval service 4,79l,172 men, or 19 per icent of the male population on the same day England had already called Ito the colors 5.S54359. or nearly 60 per
 cent.
 | The final official total for all regis
 trations was 4.234,O21. Of these 3,208, A
 had been actually examined and prae
 tically 90 men out of every 100 were
 found to be physically disqualified. OK jlahoma and Arkansas returned the high
 est ratio of men under the physical re Inducements, Rhode Island and Arizona the lowest.
 Men granted exemption because of re ,ligious creeds totalled 5s.ss0. as compared with the census estimate of 55.G00
 l Results of the work or fight order
 bore out the predictions made by its originators Ut is believed the repor said, Ito be conservative estimate tha the movement of at least 1S7. 255 men tt tproductive occupation
 Under the head of aliens 3.s7 ,0S3 mer
 were registered, or 1922 per cent of tht total. These were divided into co-bel iligerents, 57.49 per cent: neutrals. 16.42 pe cent. and enemy and allied enemy, 26.0 iper cent.
 FEW MARRIED MEN
 Only 10 per cent of the married regis trants were called for military duty Seventy-four of every hundred men class ] flied were granted deferment because O dependency, and about IS per cent ol 2 other grounds. Cases of men marvin! : after the draft law was passed coming . within the notice of draft officials to tailed 344S72 and of these men 35.5 pc . cent were re-classfied into Glass | t The effect of the draft upon the indus
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