If You Don't Register for Draft, You Can Be Imprisoned, 1917

“Remember Facts About Draft Act,” from the May 31, 1917, issue of the High Point Review

Registration Is Required of All Between the Specified Ages….Individual Is Responsible…Each Man Is Held Under Penalty For Putting His Name on Rolls…Rules for the Registration and Other Information Every Man Should Know

Penalty for Failure to Register on June 5

Failure to register on June 5^th renders one liable to a year’s imprisonment. The fact that one is not entitled to vote does not excuse him from registration.

White and colored, between the ages of 21 and 30, both inclusive, must register on June 5^th.
            --E.H. Crowder, Provost Marshal General

Regulations for registration June 5 under the selective draft act for the national army have been delivered to every county and city in the United States. All male persons between the ages of 21 and 30, both inclusive, will be required to register between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. June 5. Failure is punishable by a year’s imprisonment, without the alternative of a fine.

Here in brief are the points which the secretary of war and the president wish to have clearly fixed in the minds of the people.

All men are required to register who are 21 years old, whose 21^st birthday comes on June 5.

Excepting men now 31 years old, men whose 31^st birthday comes before June 5, and a man who will become 31 years old on June 5; men in the regular army or navy of the United States, the marine corps, and the officers’ reserve corps, and members of the National Guard and naval militia actually in the service of the United States on June 5.

Sickness, physical disability of any kind or absence from home does not excuse failure to register. National Guardsmen not mustered into the service before June 5 must register.

A year’s imprisonment is the penalty for making false statements, whether about oneself or some other person. Where the person registering is subject to military law he will be court-martialed.
Failure to register is punishable by imprisonment, without the alternative of a fine.

The place of registration is the domiciliary precinct, but adequate provision is made for enforced absence. The burden rests on each individual between 21 and 30 years, inclusive, to see that registration certificates are entered at his domiciliary precinct on registration day. Absentees may procure registration blanks from the office of the county clerk of every county or the city clerk of cities of 30,000 population or more.