100 years ago in The Saratogian
Friday, July 20, 1917. Henry T. O’Brien of Schuylerville and Jacob H. Vrooman of Ballston Lake share the privilege of being the first Saratoga County men selected in today’s military draft.
Both men were assigned number 258 in their respective districts when they registered for the draft last month. 258 is the first number drawn at 9:30 a.m. in the committee room of the Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. The first Saratoga Springs man selected is Eugene A. Palmer of Van Rensselaer Street. His number, 1095, is the ninth drawn this morning.
The object of the draft is to raise an army of 687,000 for America’s war against Germany. The draft lottery is expected to continue until early Saturday morning.
The Saratogian provides virtually instant coverage of the draft. As each number is drawn in Washington, it’s wired across the country by telegraph and posted on the local paper’s bulletin board. Saratogians are expected to have kept the papers they bought earlier this week, which published the names and numbers of all registered men, in order to learn who’s been drafted.
“Young men of draft age who were able to be on Broadway today crowded about The Saratogian bulletin board at the corner of Lake avenue all day long scanning the numbers which indicated the position of Saratoga County’s youths on the draft list,” one reporter writes.
“The general public has no idea of the undertaking which the news services and newspapers themselves have attempted to make the names of those drawn as soon as possible. The United Press direct wire in The Saratogian office has been given almost entirely to the taking of the draft numbers, to the exclusion of almost all other news.”
Not every number drawn today drafts a local man. “As only numbers under 2,973 – the number registered in the larger district of the country – affect Saratoga County men, all higher numbers are being disregarded in the local lists.”
The county’s second draft district is more populous than the first and will see more men drafted. Number 2533, the second one drawn according to The Saratogian’s list, drafts Oscar Brown of Schuylerville, but the registration rolls for the first district don’t go that high.
How many of the men drafted today will be called to service immediately remains unclear. Saratoga County hasn’t been assigned a quota of men, but “figuring on the allotment of New York State, it is probable that all of the first 500 names on the list from each district, or 1,000 from the county, will be taken. This, however, is merely an estimate.”