Saturday, Nov. 10, 1917
Saratoga County is having a hard time replacing the 21 draftees who’ve been sent home from the Camp Devens training facility for health reasons, The Saratogian reports.
Local draft boards started another round of medical examinations this week for men whose numbers were selected in the July 20 national draft lottery. Out of 125 men summoned for exams, 47 have been declared medically fit, but 31 one of those have filed for exemptions, claiming that they have dependent family members to support.
Another 26 of the 125 men simply failed to appear for their exams. They may face legal trouble for that, while “unless a good percentage of these men are located and accepted, it will be necessary for the Local Board to make another call in order to furnish the twenty-two men needed to fill vacancies and the eighteen who must be secured to supply the last five per cent of the district’s quota.”
Located in Ayer MA, Camp Devens is the training facility for draftees from northeastern New York. Saratoga County’s National Guard troops, who were called into federal service just before the U.S. declaration of war against Germany last April, are training at Camp Wadsworth in Spartansburg SC.
Rounding up aliens
Amid reports of widespread sabotage, The Saratogian editorial page reports today that “Word has gone forth that alien enemies are to be rounded up.”
The editorial writer estimates that about 1,000,000 people living in the U.S. can be considered “alien enemies.” They are unnaturalized immigrants from Germany, Bulgaria and the territories of the AustroHungarian and Ottoman empires.
“It is reported that enough provisions have been burned by pro-German agents since we entered the war to feed an army of 300,000 men for a year,” the writer notes, “Vast damage has been done, too, to docks and warehouses of eastern seaports and to elevators, lumber yards, coal yards, steel works and munition factories all over the country.”
As a consequence “alien enemies” will be placed “under surveillance,” while “the dangerous ones will be placed in detention camps…. There is talk of wholesale removals from the seaboard, in order to insure protection to American and allied ships and cargoes.
“Every citizen will grieve that such action is found necessary. But it cannot be helped. It is the aliens who have brought it on themselves.” What’s Happening At the Broadway Palace tonight, Virginia Pearson, billed as “the Southern Beauty,” stars in a Fox film adaptation of the Broadway state success, “When Fake Tongues Speak.” At the Lyric, serial star Helen Holmes stars in her new chapterplay, “The Lost Express.”