Patriotic Labor: America during World War I

Overall, the Select Service Act of 1917, which mandated enrollment in the military draft for those between twenty-one and thirty years of age, received little pushback. The United States government had learned from its previous mistakes; when it authorized the Enrollment Act of 1863, it brought many new soldiers into the Civil War, but also incited much resistance. As part of that resistance, draftees could hire a substitute to participate or pay a fee to avoid service, and many men of means did just that. Draft evasion was so common that the Civil War is often referred to as a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” In contrast, in the 1917 draft, with no substitute or evasion possible, the pool of draftees represented a broader, more representative cross section of American life.