ould best bear their separation from
home and dependents, and thus to cause the least possible distress among
the families of the Nation which are dependent upon the daily earnings
of husbands and fathers for their support.

These considerations, shortly stated, amount to a policy which,
recognizing the life of the nation as a whole, and assuming both the
obligation and the willingness of the citizen to give the maximum of
service, institutes a national process for the expression of our
military, industrial, and financial strength, all at their highest, and
with the least waste, loss, and distress.

[Sidenote: Regular Army and National Guard increased.]

The act of Congress authorizing the President to increase temporarily
the Military Establishment of the United States, approved May 18, 1917,
provided for the raising and maintaining by selective draft of
increments (in addition to the Regular Army and National Guard) of
500,000 men each, together with recruit training units for the
maintenance of such increments at the maximum strength, and the raising,
organizing, and maintaining of additional auxiliary forces, and also for
raising and maintaining at their maximum strength, by selective draft
when necessary, the Regular Army and the National Guard drafted into the
service of the United States.

[Sidenote: Male citizens between 21 and 30 years liable to military
service.]

It also provided that such draft "shall be based upon liability to
military service of all male citizens, or male persons not alien
enemies, who have declared their intention to become citizens, between
the ages of 21 and 30 years, both inclusive"; that the several States,
Territories, and the District of Columbia should furnish their
proportionate shares or quotas of the citizen soldiery determined in
proportion to the population thereof, with certain credits allowed for
volunteer enlistments in branches of the service then organized and
existing.

The Nation was confronted with the task of constructing, without delay,
an organization by which the selection might be made for the entire
country by means of a uniform and regulated system.

[Sidenote: The Provost Marshal General begins registration.]

A suggestion of administration, incomplete because of entirely different
conditions, arose from the precedent of the Civil War draft; and on May
22, 1917, the Judge Advocate General was detailed as "Provost Marshal
General" and charged with the