Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson

On August 11 Senator Weeks wrote you a letter in which the following language appears"The other suggestion I wish to bring to your attention is that relating to the drafting of men with families, except in the case where the marriage has been entered into for the purpose of escaping the draft. This is economically an unsound policy and it is unwise from the standpoint of a successful prosecution of the war to take married men as long as there are a sufficient number of single men of the draft age to meet the government's requirements."On August 13 you wrote me saying that you had told Senator Weeks that you had reason to believe that the various draft boards had his point already very much in mind.

In principle the draft boards have in mind the point raised by Senator Weeks. But the language employed by him in describing the cases to which he refers is broader than the language of the Selective Service Law and includes a class of cases in which there is no authority in that law to make exemptions.

I refer to the case where there is a family relationship between the drafted man and those in behalf of whom exemption is claimed, but where there is no condition of dependency in fact.

The Selective Service Law authorizes the President to exclude or discharge from selective draft"those in a status with respect to persons dependent upon them for support which renders their exclusion or discharge advisable."When the Bill was in the Senate, Mr. Smith of Georgia introducte, on April 28, 1917, the following amendment to this language"and in making selection for active service, married men shall be relieved as far as practicable."After deliberation the Senate rejected the amendment.

The issue is sharply this; Shall married men be exempted because they are married, or shall they be exempted only because others are dependent upon them for support? I state the question for the sake of clearness and not because I think there remains in us any authority for deciding it. I shall not, at this moment, enter the merits of the case because I conceive that the decision on the merits of the case was made in Congress on April 28 when it was deliberately proposed to give the President authority to exempt married men as such and when the proposal was deliberately rejected leaving authority to exclude or discharge from draft only those upon whom other persons were dependent for support and making the issue one of dependency and not at all one of relationship.

All registrants stand in equality before the law except as the law decrees inequality. The law decrees inequality only in those cases where the President is empowered to authorize exemptions and where local boards have actually allowed them in the facts of a particular case. Among those cases are not found married men as such, and it would therefore be illegal to promulgate a rule authorizing the exemption of a man because he is married without reference to whether we are able to find the added reason for exemption that his family is dependent upon him for support.

It may be true that it would have been a wiser thing from an economical as well as from a sentimental standpoint if Congress had decreed that all single men must be taken for the army before a single married man should go. But whether it were wiser or not is now beyond inquiry and Congress addressed itself to the question and gave us a law to execute which did not permit a reopening of that issue.

I will say this, however, the Regulations, prescribed in your name on May 18, 1917, provide for the exemption or discharge of(a) Any married man whose wife or child is dependent upon his labor for support;(b) Any son of a widow dependent upon his labor for support;(c) Any son of aged or infirm parent or parents dependent upon him for support;(d) Any father of a motherless child or children under sixteen years of age dependent upon his labor for support;(e) Any brother of a child or children under sixteen years of age with neither father nor mother and who are dependent upon his labor for support.

You will observe that the letter and the spirit of the law has been followed and that the right has been clearly given to persons whose families are dependent upon them for support to claim and receive exemption.

It is true that the claims for exemption under the dependency clauses have outrun all statistics. It is true that local boards have been instructed to look carefully into the fact of dependency in deciding each claim, and have been cautioned that, upon the care with which they weed out unmeritorious claims, depends the fate of the present regulations. They have been asked to protect those whom the present generous clauses of the Regulations were designed to protect against the unwarranted claims of hundreds who have attempted to misuse those clauses. If any local board has held to service any man within the classes described by Regulations as subject to exemption, or if any married man whose family is dependent upon him for support, has been held to service, the Law and Regulations have been violated and the case can be corrected upon appeal.

The fact that dependency is the determinative issue completely answers Senator Weeks's suggestion of economic unsoundness in a policy that takes some married men for war. This leaves us to face only his second suggestion that it is "unwise from the standpoint of a successful prosecution of the war to take married men as long as there are a sufficient number of single men of the draft age to meet the government's requirements."He means, of course, that we are neglecting a chance to reduce the shock of bereavement and the pain of separation that makes war harder for the people to bear. But when I remember that for every wife's husband we release from service, we must take another mother's son, I wonder if he offers us much encouragement in making war popular. Even if it were possible for us to do what the Senate deliberately refused to do and change the rule to exempt married men as such regardless of dependency, should we not, on the very next day, hear the opposing argument from the mothers of at least half our unselected registrants?

Very truly yours,
Newton D. Baker
Secretary of War.


Honorable Woodrow Wilson,
President of the United States,
Washington, DC