The next step in the establishment of the army of democracy was the establishment of local boards. provided in the selective service regulations that for each county of 45,000 population, and for each city of 30,000 there should be a local exemption board, with an additional board for each 30,000 population. These boards were to consist of three persons appointed by the President, one member to be a physician. These local boards, on being organized, took over all registration cards, numbered them serially without regard to alphabetical order, transmitted copies to the state adjutant-general, and prepared lists for Provost Marshal General Enoch H. Crowder, at Washington, who had charge of the national administration of the selective service regulations.

The President then fixed the net quotas for the states, and the state organizations fixed the quotas of the various districts. The quotas for the first draft were fixed as follows:

It was announced that the drawing of the 625,000 men to form the first army under the Selective Service Act would take place on July 15th in Washington. The serial numbers for each of the five thousand districts in the country were placed in a jury wheel, and would be drawn one at a time until the requisite number was attained. Each number drawn would apply to each registration district whose numbers reached the number drawn, so that nearly five thousand men would be drafted at one time. Thus, if the number "500" were drawn, the man in every district throughout the country holding that number would be selected for service and required to appear before the local board for physical examination, or for the hearing of his claim to exemption if he had one to present.

The serial numbers on the registration cards were discarded, and in their places other numbers, known as “red ink" numbers, because they were marked in red ink, were assigned the registrants. These "red ink" numbers, numbering 10,500, were placed each in a black celluloid capsule in a glass bowl. They were well mixed, and on Friday, July 20th, the drawing began. Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, blindfolded, drew the first capsule. It was handed to the announcer who opened it. His shaky hand trembled for a moment, and

nervously he drew out the little slip of paper from the capsule and called out with a quiver in his voice, "Number 258." At that moment, one man in every one of the 4,557 districts throughout the United States, if as many as 258 had been registered in each district, was called to the standard to fight for democracy against military autocracy.

The number announced was noted by three tally clerks, who wrote it on a huge blackboard in open sight of everyone in the chamber. It was then telegraphed to every town, village and hamlet from Maine to Washington, and from the

Great Lakes to the Gulf. The second number was drawn by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, the third by the Chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs, and the fourth and fifth by the ranking minority members of the two committees. Motion picture machines clicked the celluloid record of the historic drawing for preservation among the archives of the country, at the request of the Secretary of War.

In the cities, towns and villages throughout the entire country, business was virtually suspended for the day. All day long, and far into the night, crowds of young men, anxious to know whether they were in the chosen ranks of democracy's knighthood, lawyers, laborers, machinists, drug-clerks, artisans and authors, rich and poor, thronged the sidewalks in front of bulletin board whereon the numbers were displayed in order. The drawing of the capsules continued for sixteen and a half hours, until the ten thousand five hundred pellets had been taken from the bowl, and 1,374,000 men had been called to form the vanguard of the dauntless American Army.

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CHAPTER V

TRANSFORMING CITIZENS INTO SOLDIERS

HE bugle sounded. "To arms!" Clerks and lawyers, machinists and musicians, engineers and laborers, all America's manhood, overflowing with the ideals of democracy, flocked to the colors.

The overall, the jumper, the silken socks, the alpaca office coat-all were laid aside, and khaki clothed them every one. Overnight, it seemed, training camps sprang up, wooden cities housing thousands, growing out of the earth like mushrooms after a rain. Training fields, drill grounds-levelled, laid out and perfected in less time than was ever hoped for by the War Department. The American Army, particul rly the National Army, literally "ate up" its training. The French trembled. "We are holding the enemy-but for how long?" was the word from Foch. "We are fighting with our backs to the wall," said Field Marshal Haig, at the moment when the Allies' darkest hour had arrived. "Hold the lineWe're coming, and we're aching for a fight," was the word from America.

It took some time to wake America up, it is true, but once awakened-there was no let up until the armistice was signed in the special train of Marshal Foch in the little forest near the town of Senlis. As soon as the call was sounded, it was unthinkable that there should be any cessation of the tremendous war activities here, and there was none.

With no hatred in their hearts for the German people, but with a determination to crush the Thing that dominated them and threatened to dominate the world, the Americans set themselves the task of winning the war-and what the American dares, he can do.

Under the terms of the Selective Service Act with its subsequent modifications, approximately 23,709,000 males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five inclusive registered for service in the National Army. The dates of regis