100 years ago in The Record: June 5
Tuesday, June 5, 1917
“Perfect weather and good order marked the opening of conscription draft registration day in Troy and in the towns of Rensselaer county,” The Record reports. Men between the ages of 21 and 30 are required to register today across the country for a military draft tentatively scheduled for September 5. The U.S. declared war on Germany on April 6. “There was, in fact, a subdued air in every registration district, indicating that the full seriousness of the duty … was fully appreciated,” our reporter writes, “but to the serious attitude was joined a readiness to perform that duty which was eloquent of patriotism, and readiness to answer the call for service. “There was no joking or hilarity such as characterize an election day, but neither was there glumness nor gloom – just serious quietness and an evident purpose not to shirk a loyal responsibility.” Shirking that duty, or “slacking,” carries a penalty of one year in prison. Any effort to discourage men from registering will be considered sedition or treason, with penalties ranging from five years in prison to death. Security is tight at local registration sites due to the possibility of violent resistance. Trojans rioted in protest against a Civil War military draft in July 1863. In 1917, however, officers “were not called upon to make arrests, although service of that nature may follow, as there were reports of ‘slackers’ here and there.”
In Pittstown, a group of immigrants from Spain refuses to register “until they could communicate with the Spanish consulate in New York.” Sheriff William P. Powers tells them, through an interpreter, that “the United States government, not a foreign government, is to be obeyed.”
In Troy, an unidentified factory foreman asks draftage employees arriving for the 6 p.m. shift whether they’ve registered. One man who doesn’t have a registration card is told that he can’t work until he gets one.
“The employee resented the action of the foreman and a very heated scene followed, which resulted in the employee quitting,” our writer reports, “The employee had been noted for his pro-German utterances, but claimed exemption from the draft on a purported enlistment in the naval reserves.
“Incidentally, in an argument with the head of another department the man who failed to register felt the effect of American insistence emphatically ‘registered’ on the point of his jaw. The matter will not rest there.”
Slackers are “very foolish young men [who] will be held up to public ridicule and pointed out as men who failed to respond to the first patriotic duty asked of them in the present world strife.”