Welcome, and thank you for joining us for another
Deep Dive. I want you to start by picturing the
United States military as it exists today. You
are probably imagining a massive, technologically
advanced, globally deployed force. Right. Hundreds
of thousands of active duty personnel stationed
all over the world. Exactly. Well, hold that
thought, because I want you to completely rewind
the clock to the year 1914. Just imagine this
contrast. In 1914, the United States Army had
fewer than 100 ,000 regular troops. Wow. Yeah.
And the National Guard. That was sitting at roughly
115 ,000 men. We are talking about a force that
was essentially, I mean... just a fraction of
the size of the mobilized Arnees tearing across
Europe at the time. It was a completely different
era for the military. It really was. But fast
forward just a little bit to when the U .S. officially
enters World War I. Suddenly, President Woodrow
Wilson realizes he doesn't just need a few more
soldiers. He needs a massive expeditionary force
of a million men. A million men, instantly. Instantly.
So they put out the national call for volunteers
expecting this huge tidal wave of patriotism.
But the actual turnout on that first day was
frankly shockingly low. It really was a wake
up call for the administration. On the very first
day of the war's declaration, only 73 ,000 men
volunteered across the entire country. Which
sounds like a lot until you look at the target.
Exactly. Now, 73 ,000 people deciding to go to
war in a single day is an astonishing number
in a vacuum, sure. But when your absolute baseline
target is 1 million, it is mathematically just
a drop in the bucket. It became immediately apparent
to the military brass that relying solely on
the volunteer spirit of the American public was
simply not gonna work if they wanted to have
any actual impact in Europe. And that massive
shortfall, that's the core of our deep dive today.
We are focusing entirely on the Selective Service
Act of 1917. We are pulling from a really comprehensive
historical article today that breaks down the
origins, the execution, and the immense societal
impact of this massive conscription effort. It's
a fascinating piece of source material. It really
is. Our mission for this deep dive is to explore
exactly how the US government solved what was
essentially an unprecedented mathematical and
logistical problem. We are going to look at how
they transformed a relatively small uninterested
populace into a global fighting force. And we
will examine the fascinating and sometimes quite
controversial rules that governed who went to
war and who got to stay home. OK, let's unpack
this. To really understand the panic setting
in at the War Department, we need to look at
their own internal goals leading up to this,
right? Yeah, absolutely. There was something
called the National Defense Act of 1916. That
act had authorized the steady, deliberate growth
of the Army to 165 ,000 men and the National
Guard to 450 ,000. But they had years to do that.
Right. The crucial detail is that their timeline
to hit those numbers was 1921. But by the time
1917 rolled around and the U .S. actually entered
the war, the Army had only organically expanded
to about 121 ,000 men, and the National Guard
was sitting at just 181 ,000. So even by their
own modest pre -war targets, they were miles
behind schedule. How did the leadership react
to that reality? Did President Wilson immediately
jump to the idea of a draft? He actually didn't.
Wilson stubbornly wanted to use an all -volunteer
force at first. Really? Yeah. But within six
weeks of that initial call for a million men,
the math was simply undeniable. Waiting around
for men to self -elect, to leave their farms
and their factories voluntarily, it just was
not compatible with the urgent plans to quickly
mobilize a fighting force and get them across
the Atlantic. So someone had to be the bearer
of bad news. Exactly. It was at this breaking
point that Secretary of War Newton D. Baker stepped
in and formally recommended a draft to the president.
I imagine suggesting a national draft wasn't
an easy sell, even to the military establishment
itself. The source material mentions someone
named General Enoch H. Crowder being involved.
What was his role in all of this? So General
Crowder was the judge advocate general in the
United States Army. Essentially, he was the top
legal officer in the military. When he was first
consulted about a draft, he was actually opposed
to it. No kidding. Yeah. But the sheer necessity
of this situation eventually changed his mind.
With the help of Captain Eken, who would later
become Brigadier General Hugh S. Johnson and
a few others, Crowder didn't just support the
idea. He guided the bill through Congress. And
once it passed, Crowder ended up administering
the entire draft as the Provost Marshal General.
Wait, let's clarify that term for a second. What
exactly does a Provost Marshal General do? It
basically means he was the head of military law
enforcement. He was the man tasked with taking
this massive theoretical legal document and turning
it into a physical reality on the ground across
thousands of American towns. And Captain Johnson
was the one writing it. Yes, it's worth noting
that Captain Hugh S. Johnson is actually the
person who sat down and drafted the specific
text of the act itself. While all this incredibly
dense bureaucratic maneuvering is happening,
the source text highlights a completely bizarre
footnote involving a former president. Theodore
Roosevelt. Oh, this is such a great detail. He
apparently wanted to just assemble his own personal
volunteer force and sail off to fight in Europe,
which honestly sounds like the most Teddy Roosevelt
thing I have ever heard. It absolutely fits his
persona to a tee. He envisioned leading a grand
cavalry charge just like the Rough Riders. But
President Wilson and the various Army officers
trying to organize this modern, mechanized war
were highly reluctant to allow a former president
to run a rogue volunteer division. I can see
why that would be a logistical nightmare. Oh,
entirely. They eventually reached a political
compromise in the final text of the bill. It
included a specific provision that permitted
the president to raise four volunteer divisions.
But Wilson never actually let him do it, did
he? He just left the options sitting there on
the table, completely unexercised. He never touched
it. The era of the independently raised volunteer
regiment was over. If we connect this to the
bigger picture, shifting from a volunteer army
to a massive, centrally controlled, drafted military
was a profound philosophical change for the country.
Because of the scale. Because it fundamentally
altered the relationship between the American
citizen and the federal government. For the first
time on this scale, the government was claiming
the absolute authority to compel millions of
individual men to leave their homes, cross an
ocean and fight a war they previously had very
little interest in. And that brings us to the
next massive hurdle. You have the legal authority
to draft people, sure. But how do you convince
a highly uninterested, sometimes openly hostile
populace to actually support this war, let alone
support a draft? They had to build a public relations
machine completely from scratch. Exactly. The
source introduces a man named George Creel. Who
was he and what was his strategy? George Creel
was a veteran of the newspaper industry and he
was brought in to be the United States official
war propagandist. He established something called
the Committee on Public Information. And the
scale of what they accomplished is just staggering.
They recruited a literal army of 75 ,000 public
speakers. Wow. They called them the four -minute
men. Because their speeches were meticulously
timed to last exactly four minutes. Can you imagine
trying to get a crowd's attention for four straight
minutes today? They had essentially invented
the analog equivalent of a TikTok algorithm.
Short. punchy, highly targeted content delivered
everywhere all at once. That's a great way to
put it. The numbers are wild. These 75 ,000 speakers
delivered 750 ,000 of these four -minute speeches
in 5 ,000 different cities and towns across America.
There were movie theaters, town squares, union
halls. You just couldn't escape them. What's
fascinating here is the sheer length the government
went to in order to manufacture consent, especially
among the working class. Creel knew that labor
strikes or anti -war sentiment among factory
workers could entirely cripple the war effort.
So they targeted them specifically. Yes. He later
helped form the American Alliance for Labor and
Democracy. They brought in Samuel Gompers, a
massively prominent union leader to serve as
president of the alliance. The explicit goal
was to win working class support for the war
and unify national sentiment. They even set up
branches in 164 different cities. But according
to the source material, this massive push wasn't
a total home run, was it? Did the working class
actually buy into it? Not entirely. While many
labor leaders went along with it and some prominent
socialist leaders actually shifted to a pro -war
stance, the majority really did not. The rank
-and -file working class support for the war
remained lukewarm at best. So the propaganda
had its limits. Right. The source explicitly
states that this specific propaganda campaign
targeting the working class was ultimately unsuccessful
in changing their underlying sentiments. But
even if the propaganda didn't entirely win over
the working class, the government did something
else structurally that fundamentally changed
how the public viewed the fairness of this draft.
They closed a massive, highly controversial loophole
that had existed since the Civil War. Walk us
through how the Civil War draft worked and why
people hated it so much. This is a critical distinction
that really shifted public morale. During the
Civil War draft, a drafted man could legally
avoid service by simply hiring another man to
serve as his substitute. Or... he could pay a
commutation fee directly to the government. Just
buy his way out. Exactly. As you can imagine,
this created a very powerful perception that
the wealthy were just buying their way out of
the war while the poor were sent to die. It led
to the phrase, a rich man's war and a poor man's
fight. He was deeply resented and seen by the
general public as highly dishonorable. And the
Selective Service Act of 1917 squashed that entirely.
Section 3 of the Act explicitly prohibited the
practice. It stated that no person liable to
military service could furnish a substitute,
nor could any substitute be received. Right.
Furthermore, no one could escape service or be
discharged prior to the expiration of their term
by a payment of money or any other valuable thing.
You couldn't buy your release, period. That single
legislative decision leveled the playing field
in a very visible, tangible way. And when you
look at the final results, this draft was incredibly
effective compared to historical attempts. By
the end of World War I, Around 2 million men
had volunteered for various branches, but some
2 .8 million had been successfully drafted. Think
about that ratio. More than half of the almost
4 .8 million Americans who served in the armed
forces during World War I were drafted. And despite
the lukewarm feelings of the working class we
discussed, the overall effort to incite a patriotic
attitude, combined with the perceived fairness
of the new rules, paid off. the World War I draft
had a remarkably high compliance rate. Did many
people try to dodge it? Out of millions processed,
fewer than 350 ,000 men actively dodged the draft.
Furthermore, Section 7 of the Act helped build
local camaraderie by providing that men would,
as far as practicable, be grouped into units
by their states and political subdivisions. Oh,
that makes sense. Yeah, the most prominent example
of this was the National Army Infantry Divisions.
You were going to war, but you were serving alongside
the men from your very own hometown. I want you,
the listener, to just imagine being in one of
those 5 ,000 towns at the time. You are sitting
in a local theater, someone walks out and gives
a fiery four -minute speech about patriotic duty,
and you know for an absolute fact that the richest
guy down the street cannot just write a check
to get out of this war. It creates a completely
different psychological environment than previous
conflicts. Here's where it gets really interesting.
Because the government didn't just throw all
these millions of names into a giant hat and
pull them out at random. This wasn't a blind
lottery. They created a highly organized, deeply
calculated class system to determine exactly
who went to the front lines and who stayed behind.
That is the real logistical genius of the 1917
Act. They broke the entire male population down
into five distinct categories, Class I through
Class V. And conscription was strictly sequential
by class. Meaning they started at the top. Exactly.
Draft boards were instructed that you only drafted
from the classes below class I if the pool of
all available and potential candidates in the
class above it was completely 100 % exhausted.
So the government is essentially playing God
here, assigning an essential or non -essential
value to millions of individual lives. How did
they define these categories? Who ended up in
class one? Class I was the prime candidates.
These were the men who were eligible and liable
for military service right away. No excuses.
We're talking about unmarried registrants with
no dependents. What about married men? It also
included married registrants, but only if their
spouses were financially independent or if they
had dependent children over the age of 16 with
sufficient family income to survive if the man
was drafted. Basically, if your family wouldn't
starve without you, you were packing your bags.
What about classes two and three? Classes 2 and
3 were the temporarily deferred or exempted categories.
Now, they were technically still available for
service if the war dragged on and things got
truly desperate, but for the time being they
stayed home. Class 2 included married registrants
with a dependent spouse or dependent children
under 16, again, provided they had sufficient
family income if drafted. And Class 3. Class
3 is where it gets into societal roles. This
included local officials, registrants who provided
the sole family income for dependent parents
or dependent siblings under 16. And very importantly,
Class 3 protected registrants employed in agricultural
labor or industrial enterprises that the government
deemed essential to the war effort. So if you
were a farmer growing the food to feed the army
or a steel worker making the artillery shells,
the government recognized you were more valuable
at home than in a trench. Then we moved to class
four, which was exemption due to extreme hardship.
Right, the real hardship cases. This included
married registrants with a dependent spouse or
children, where the family income would be completely
insufficient if they were drafted. It also included
men with a deceased spouse who provided the sole
income for dependent children under 16 or registrants
with deceased parents who provided the sole income
for dependent siblings under 16. It's fascinating
to see the bureaucracy try to map out every possible
family tragedy to avoid creating a generation
of destitute orphans. And finally you have Class
V. These were the men who were completely exempted
or deemed outright ineligible for induction.
This covered state or federal officials, officers,
and enlisted men who were already in the military
or naval service, licensed pilots actively working
in their vocation, and members of the clergy.
The source notes a very specific caveat about
divinity students in Class V. It included students
who, on or before May 18th, 1917, had been preparing
for the ministry in a recognized theological
or divinity school. So you couldn't just suddenly
decide you had a calling from God on May 19th
to avoid the draft. They anticipated people trying
to game the system. They certainly did. Class
V also caught anyone who was deemed medically
disabled, meaning permanently physically or mentally
unfit. or morally unfit for service. Morally
unfit. Yeah, that morally unfit category included
those convicted of treason, any felony, or an
infamous crime. It also included enemy aliens
and resident aliens. Managing a system with this
many nuances and exceptions required a massive
data collection effort. They were essentially
building a nationwide database of the male population
from scratch, using paper and pencil. How did
they actually gather all this information? Through
a series of highly publicized mandatory registration
days. During World War I, there were three separate
national registration days to build this database.
The first was on June 5, 1917. That initial call
was for all men between the ages of 21 and 30.
Just 21 to 30. Right. But as the war ground on,
that initial pool of men simply wasn't enough.
They had to keep going back to the well. So it
became a narrative of escalating desperation
for the War Department. Exactly. Over the next
year, they ran two more registration drives.
The second registration was exactly a year later,
on June 5th, 1918, which captured guys who had
just turned 21 since the first draft. They also
held a supplemental registration on August 24th,
1918. But even that wasn't enough, was it? No.
The demand for fresh troops in Europe was so
insatiable that they had to ask Congress to amend
the law entirely. In August of 1918, Congress
barred any further volunteering and expanded
the age range dramatically. So the third National
Registration Day, held on September 12th, 1918,
threw the net impossibly wide. It required registration
from all men ages 18 all the way up to 45. This
raises an important question. How did a deeply
legally segregated America handle a massive national
draft that suddenly required processing millions
of its citizens? The source material details
this, frankly, and it's vital to understanding
the full complex scope of the Selected Service
Act. That is a crucial point. The American military
and much of American society was entirely segregated
at the time of World War I. So when the government
is trying to mobilize millions of men in 1917,
how did they handle this? Did they draft Black
Americans too, or did the racial politics of
the era prevent it? It was a point of massive
political contention. The Army did have several
existing regiments of black soldiers, historically
known as the Buffalo Soldiers. But when it came
time for the national draft, many politicians
staunchly opposed expanding the military role
for black Americans. Who was leading that opposition?
Specifically, the text notes fierce opposition
from Senator James K. Vardaman of Mississippi
and Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina.
Nevertheless, the War Department pushed forward
and made the decision to include black people
in the draft. And the numbers were highly significant.
How many are we talking about? During the two
calls of June 1917 and September 1918, a total
of 2 ,290 ,527 Black Americans are ultimately
registered. That represented 9 .6 % of the total
American pool for potential conscription. But
the mechanics of how the local draft boards actually
handled these registrations reflected the rigid
segregation of the era in a very physical, undeniable
way. The source describes a specific instruction
given to draft board officials regarding the
Selective Service forms of black registrants.
Yes. Draft board officials were explicitly instructed
to physically tear off the lower left -hand corner
of the Selective Service form of a black registrant.
That missing corner was the immediate visual
indicator designating that man for segregated
units. Just think about the cold bureaucracy
of that for a second. Prejudice wasn't just a
sentiment or a quiet understanding. It was physically
engineered into the shape of a piece of paper.
A torn corner dictated your entire military fate
before you even put on a uniform. Once they were
drafted, how did the military deploy them? Their
military roles were heavily restricted by the
War Department. The decision -making was influenced
by several factors, including racial prejudices
of the time and specific events like the August
1917 Houston riot, where armed black soldiers
fired upon Houston police and civilians. So what
roles did they end up in? As a result of these
policies, the great majority of black soldiers
were employed solely in labor functions. jobs
like road building, stevedore work, and freight
handling behind the lines. Out of all those drafted
and mobilized, only two black combat units were
ultimately established by the Army, the 92nd
and 93rd Infantry Divisions. And the other branches
of the military were even more restrictive, right?
Yes. The source notes that Black Americans were
entirely excluded from serving in the United
States Marine Corps, and they were consigned
strictly to medial labor roles in the United
States Navy for the entire duration of the war.
It is a stark reflection of the realities of
the time, built directly into the administrative
machinery of this massive mobilization. So what
does this all mean? When you step back and look
at the Selective Service Act of 1917 as a whole,
the sheer speed of this historical event is almost
hard to comprehend. It goes from an idea to a
nationwide reality and then vanishes in the blink
of an eye. The timeline is truly breathtaking.
The act was drafted, debated, and signed into
law by May 18, 1917. Now, it immediately faced
legal challenges from people arguing the conscription
was unconstitutional. But the law was firmly
upheld by the United States Supreme Court in
1918 in a sweeping ruling known as the Selective
Draft Law Cases. Wait, what was the legal argument
that the government used to win that Supreme
Court case? How did they legally justify forcing
citizens to fight? The government's argument
and the court's ultimate opinion leaned heavily
on a very specific Civil War precedent called
Meathler v. Lane. That was a case that established
the constitutionality of the federal government
instituting a draft during a time of national
crisis. Were there any other precedents they
used? Yeah, the court also relied on an older
foundational 1758 treatise on international law
by a philosopher named Vitell. called the Law
of Nations, which basically affirmed the inherent
right of a sovereign nation to call upon its
citizens for its own defense. So they had the
legal backing. They built this massive bureaucratic
machine. They processed millions of men. And
then as quickly as it spun up, it completely
vanished. The armistice ending the fighting was
signed on November 11th, 1918. And by March 31st,
1919, just a few months later, all local district
and medical advisory boards across the country
were permanently closed. It was incredibly fast.
On May 21, 1919, the last state headquarters
closed operations. And General Crowder, the provost's
marshal general, was formally relieved from duty
on July 15, 1919. The entire machinery of the
World War I selective service system was completely
terminated and swept into the history books.
It was a temporary, almost terrifying expansion
of government power. I think the major takeaway
for anyone studying this is the staggering organizational
feed it required. In roughly 18 months, using
paper, pencils, and thousands of local volunteers,
the United States categorized, mobilized, and
controlled the lives of millions of men. That's
unbelievable. They calculated precisely who was
essential, who was expendable, and forced a completely
uninterested public into a global conflict fundamentally
altering the nation's scale of operations and
its relationship with its citizens forever. It's
incredible to think about the logistics and the
sheer willpower involved. And it leaves us with
a provocative thought for you to ponder as we
wrap up. Building on that intricate class system
we discussed, if a sudden massive national mobilization
were required tomorrow, how do you think society
would define an essential versus a non -essential
worker today? That's a great question. Our economy
looks vastly different than it did in 1917. Who
do you think would be placed in Class I, heading
straight to the front lines, and who would be
safely deferred into Class V? It is definitely
something to think about the next time you look
at the jobs that keep our modern world running.
Thank you so much for joining us on this deep
dive. Keep asking questions and keep learning.