EH Crowder to Woodrow Wilson
Title
EH Crowder to Woodrow Wilson
Creator
Crowder, Enoch Herbert, 1859-1932
Identifier
WWP25232
Date
1918 October 5
Description
Provost Marshall General does not believe that agricultural workers should get any more protection from the draft.
Source
Library of Congress, Woodrow Wilson Papers
Publisher
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum
Subject
United States. Selective Service System
Draft--United States
Contributor
Morgan Willer
Language
English
Provenance
Document scan was taken from Library of Congress microfilm reel of the Wilson Papers. WWPL volunteers transcribed the text.
Text
The President,
The White House.
My dear Mr. President:
I have given the most careful consideration to your letter of October 4th in which there appears a suggestion that it may be wise to create the presumptive right to deferment on the part of anyone who can show that he is continuously engaged in real agricultural labor.
No provisions of the Selective Service Regulations have been more liberal than those accorded to agriculturists. In the first draft--and existing regulations have made little change in the procedure in respect of it--the farming class suffered far less disturbance by reason of withdrawals for military duty than any of the major industrial groups. In the first draft only 1.48 percent of the total farming population was accepted for military service, whereas 3.12 percent of the national total of coal miners, 4.23 percent of the ship builders, 3.79 percent of the metal workers (except steel and iron) and 5.90 percent of the iron and steel workers were withdrawn. These percentages will doubtless obtain in the second draft (January to October, 1918) in view of the fact that the classification rules have undergone no material change.
Not only was the agricultural class least impaired in the execution of the first draft but on March 11, 1918, ignoring both classification and order number, I directed the deferment until the end of the next quota of all Class 1 farmers who were then actively, completely and assiduously engaged in the planting and cultivation of a crop. To no other class has such a concession been made or suggested. I am certain that the farmers, as a class, have no reason to complain on the ground that an undue share of their class has been called. I am not sure but that we have gone already as far as it is safe to go and I confess my anxiety as to what may follow the adoption of a plan which approaches very closely a class exemption.
But the apprehension which I feel as to the outcome of any plan savoring of class exemption is heightened when the effect of such a procedure is viewed in the light of the contemplated military program. The 1919 program calls for the production of approximately two million seven hundred thousand men. Conservative estimates of the availables to be secured from the registration of September 12th place the total at nearly one-half million less than the requisite number. To accord a presumptive right to deferred classification to all persons continuously (time not stated) engaged in agricultural labor would so materially disturb every calculation heretofore made and would withdraw from those heretofore considered available for military service so large a number that I cannot say to what lengths we would be forced were such a procedure adopted.
I cannot believe, especially in view of the leniency already adopted toward the agricultural class and the imperative necessity of recruiting our armies to the full strength of available man power, that the present regulations should be modified or extended.
Yours very truly,
EH Crowder,
Provost Marshal General.
The White House.
My dear Mr. President:
I have given the most careful consideration to your letter of October 4th in which there appears a suggestion that it may be wise to create the presumptive right to deferment on the part of anyone who can show that he is continuously engaged in real agricultural labor.
No provisions of the Selective Service Regulations have been more liberal than those accorded to agriculturists. In the first draft--and existing regulations have made little change in the procedure in respect of it--the farming class suffered far less disturbance by reason of withdrawals for military duty than any of the major industrial groups. In the first draft only 1.48 percent of the total farming population was accepted for military service, whereas 3.12 percent of the national total of coal miners, 4.23 percent of the ship builders, 3.79 percent of the metal workers (except steel and iron) and 5.90 percent of the iron and steel workers were withdrawn. These percentages will doubtless obtain in the second draft (January to October, 1918) in view of the fact that the classification rules have undergone no material change.
Not only was the agricultural class least impaired in the execution of the first draft but on March 11, 1918, ignoring both classification and order number, I directed the deferment until the end of the next quota of all Class 1 farmers who were then actively, completely and assiduously engaged in the planting and cultivation of a crop. To no other class has such a concession been made or suggested. I am certain that the farmers, as a class, have no reason to complain on the ground that an undue share of their class has been called. I am not sure but that we have gone already as far as it is safe to go and I confess my anxiety as to what may follow the adoption of a plan which approaches very closely a class exemption.
But the apprehension which I feel as to the outcome of any plan savoring of class exemption is heightened when the effect of such a procedure is viewed in the light of the contemplated military program. The 1919 program calls for the production of approximately two million seven hundred thousand men. Conservative estimates of the availables to be secured from the registration of September 12th place the total at nearly one-half million less than the requisite number. To accord a presumptive right to deferred classification to all persons continuously (time not stated) engaged in agricultural labor would so materially disturb every calculation heretofore made and would withdraw from those heretofore considered available for military service so large a number that I cannot say to what lengths we would be forced were such a procedure adopted.
I cannot believe, especially in view of the leniency already adopted toward the agricultural class and the imperative necessity of recruiting our armies to the full strength of available man power, that the present regulations should be modified or extended.
Yours very truly,
EH Crowder,
Provost Marshal General.
Original Format
Letter
To
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Files
Collection
Citation
Crowder, Enoch Herbert, 1859-1932, “EH Crowder to Woodrow Wilson,” 1918 October 5, WWP25232, World War I Letters, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.