Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 1234

Baker gave Leonard Wood credit for the initiation of the draft of soldiers ; ;

from the General's idea a chain reaction occurred.

Wood took the proposal to Chief of Staff Hugh L. Scott, who passed it on to Baker a month before the actual declaration of war against Germany.

The Secretary of War gave his assent after studying the history of the draft in the American Civil War as well as the British volunteer system in World War 1.

He concluded that selective service would not only prevent the disorganization of essential war industries but would avoid the undesirable moral effects of the British reliance on enlistment only -- `` where the feeling of the people was whipped into a frenzy by girls pinning white feathers on reluctant young men, orators preaching hate of the Germans, and newspapers exaggerating enemy outrages to make men enlist out of motives of revenge and retaliation ''.

Baker took the plan to Wilson who said: `` Baker, this is plainly right on any ground.

Start to prepare the necessary legislation so that if I am obliged to go to Congress the bills will be ready for immediate consideration ''.

The result was that by secret agreement draft machinery was actually ready long before the country knew that the device was to take the place of the volunteering method which Theodore Roosevelt favored.

Before the Draft Act was passed Baker had confidentially briefed governors, sheriffs, and prospective draft board members on the administration of the measure -- and the confidence was kept so well that only one newspaper learned what was going on.

It was Baker, working through Provost Marshal Enoch Crowder and Major Hugh S. ( `` Old Ironpants '' ) Johnson, who arranged for a secret printing by the million of selective service blanks -- again before the Act was passed -- until corridors in the Government Printing Office were full and the basement of the Washington Post Office was stacked to the ceiling.

General Crowder proposed that Regular Army officers select the draftees in cities and towns throughout the nation ; ;

it was Baker who thought of lessening the shock, which conscription always brings to a country, by substituting `` Greetings from your neighbors '' for the recruiting sergeant, and registration in familiar voting places rather than at military installations.