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Meanwhile, only 26 percent of the white registrants were called. Once the Selective Service Act went into effect, discrimination had the reverse effect from what it had produced before, Instead of keeping Negroes out of the Army, some Selective Service Boards discriminated against them in terms of the exemptions which were permitted.

The draft, which was practically a great lottery to establish the order in which the registrants were to be called into war service, took place on July 20, 1917, in Washington.

It changed the draft ages and added more than 13,000,000 registrants to the available supply of men. A clause of this law, designed in part to provide further supplies of officers, allowed the Secretary of War to send soldiers to educational institutions at the public expense, thus establishing the Students' Army Training Corps.

The formal drawing of the serial numbers allotted to registrants occurred in Washington late in July. District boards were appointed to examine the men drafted and receive applications for exemption, also appeal boards in every State.

The outstanding fact was that the registrants were all on an equal footing and that their mustering brought nearer the realization of the President's dream of a "citizenry trained" without favoritism or discrimination.

Of those summoned in Class I Negroes contributed 51.65 per cent of their registrants as against 32.53 per cent of the white. In France the work of defamation was manifest and flagrant.

The President increased the number of men to be drafted for the first army from 500,000 to 687,000 in order to use drafted men to bring the regular army and the National Guard to their full strength. Thus there were 687,000 men to be selected from a registration of 9,649,938. The quota required from each State, based upon each State's number of registrants, was determined in that proportion.

The method fixed with absolute equality of chance the order in which all registrants if called upon were to report to their local boards for examination and subsequent exemption, discharge, or acceptance for military service. The local boards at once organized for the examination and enrollment of the men called.