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DRAFT OF 1913 AND THE SIXTIES The wonderful contrast between the draft of 1918 and the draft of the sixties is vividly called to attention in an editorial in tlie Louisville Courier Journal of Monday October 21 which is well worth reading sind is as follows What a contrast is offered by the circumstances of the draft in 101S and the draft of the sixties sixtiesThe The politicians who harangued Congress upon the uiisiiitability of drafting boys 18 years old were not many when the recent manpower bill was up for discussion Their arguments were seed sown upon stones Their memories were short They forgot that 18 was the accepted minimum in the Civil War in the north and the south less than sixty years ago agoWhen When the Union conscription bill was passed In 1803 a decision of the Supreme Court was neces ¬ sary to uphold the hands of Congress One bill had lKen declared liy the Democrats unconstitutional and their arguments carried such weight that the Republicans fell buck upon the right to raise armies and passed a bill calling all ablebodied men between 18 and 45 Slackers were plentiful upholders of slackers were numerous and noisy Drafted men could buy exemption for 300 or hire substitutes Mobs undertook to resist tlie draft The City of New York was held for two days by the draft dodgers and their sympathizers Commuta ¬ tions exemptions bounty jumping reduced a draft of 3000000000 men to 100000 men actually obtained and employed under the draft Tlie rich speaking generally paid their 300 and the poor wore so hostile to the draft that Governor Seymour of New York urged at Washington the postpone ¬ ment of the draft because of popular excitement When the drafting began a mob marched through tlie stnits of New York throwing paving stones through windows smashing furniture clubbing draft officers setting buildings on fire and defending hydrants agaiiKt firemen that the flames might rage un ¬ checked checkedNegroes Negroes were stoned to death in the streets charged with being the cause of the war or hanged to lamp posts Restaurants and hotels employing negro waiters were smashed aiid looted A negro orphan asylum was raided and set on fire The 800 inmates were driven into the streets The fur ¬ niture was stolen Men with sledge hammers broke open the Second Avenue Armory to secure muskets drove the defending police from the build ¬ ing and applied the torch A mob operating in lower New York attempted to burn the Tribune because it was edited by Horace Greeley a leading abolitionist An entire block on Broadway was burned because tlie draft office was in one of the buildings in the block Negro quarters were burned and the murder of negroes was the pastime of the mol An army officer who had dispersed a mob sprained his ankle and stepped inlo a drug store for ssistance The drugcist ordered him out The inob set UIMJII him killed him and dragged his l ody up and down the street trampling it and mutilat ¬ ing it It became necessary to suspend the draft About 500 persons were killed in the riots and an army was required to restore peace Americans differed about the right of states to secede ulK ut the right to compel the Abolition of slavery about the necessity for war They were moreover enraged by the circumstances of u draft which favored the welltodo class and threw the burden of service upon the penniless New York was not alone In its attitude of hostility to the draft although its conduct was worse than that of other northern cities citiesDrafting Drafting in 1018 proceeds serenely Americans nowadays kuW that the government does not iu tend and will not permit class favoritism and they are unanimous in their indorsement of the prosecution of a necessary and a glorious war for liberty This was illustrated by the circumstances of the drafts made under the first manpower bill The circumstances of the drafts made under the second bill will provide further and if possible more striking proof of thu solidarity of the people in behalf of the war warA A nation strong in money in material in men and in the mood that America is in does not fail It should be remembered forever and it will be re corded in histories written by Americans us well us in histories written by Europeans that the defense of the British and the French against the Germans in the earlier years of the war marked those nations as being fully as heroic as any na ¬ tion which fought a war of selfdefense in ancient or in modern times No legendary hero held his ground more firmly or fought better than did the officers and the men of the rank and file in the Itritish and French urtnios which met the shock of the German invasion and beat back what seenied u shoreless sea of perfectly trained and perfectly armed men in 1914 and in 1915 1915Americans Americans who jiow may be inclined to under ¬ estimate the heroism and the effectiveness of the Itritish and the Feeuyh prior to our entrance into tlie war will be chastened when they read im ¬ partial history but the spirit in which America entered tlie war left nothing to be desired The rapid preparation the swift dispatch of a great overseas army tle magnificent mobilization of re ¬ sources and civilian man power for war service set m example for an admiring world Every resource has responded us the men culled under the draft are responding modestly gladly promptly con ¬ fidently There Jias been aiothing quite like it in history historyThu Thu record ns finally written will not show that the American soldier fought moru courage ly than the ISritish Tommy or the French Ioilu but that ho foight as courageously when Iis turn came and that he had at his buck a civilian population ready to go all lengths to send him overseas and see him through
