The Draft in World War 1
(Flagg, "I want you for the U.S. army")
When our nation got involved in the First World War, we quickly realized that relying chiefly on voluntary enlistment wouldn’t cut it. We needed to raise more manpower in order to have enough men to fight. In reaction to this need, President Woodrow Wilson and Congress passed the Selective Service Act in 1917. Initially, the act approved a selective draft that registered men who were in the age range of 21-31. In need of more men, there ended up being three draft registration periods for this war. This age range was expanded in the second draft period in 1918 to men who had turned 21 years old since the first draft registration period. Lastly, in the third draft registration period, which occurred a few months after the second period, required all men 18-45 to register if they had not done so already (National Archives, 1918). Once again, I consider this is a very wide age range of draftees.
About a month after the Act was signed into law, the draft was revived; only this time, there were modifications to it. Unlike the Civil War, this draft did not yield as many loopholes. This time around, personal substitutions and paying your way out was out of the question. On the other hand, this draft did allow for deferments regarding men who were already involved in important industry jobs, those already supporting a family, or those with religious reluctances. Those with these religious reluctances were identified as “religious conscientious objectors (Cos)” (Nisbco, 2000). Although I will go into more detail about religious conscientious objectors, it is important to know at this time that they could elect to take noncombatant roles within the military for the war. This way, they could still participate in the national war effort.
In total, of the 3.5 million men involved in World War I, 2.8 million of them were drafted. This was a big jump from the Civil War, which only consisted of 8% draftees. Because of the importance of our country’s involvement in World War I, various ethnicities were drafted including African Americans and numerous immigrants. In regards to the time frame however, these different ethnicities served in different units from each other (Wagner, 2007).