On this day one hundred years ago, May 18, 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act of 1917, authorizing the military draft, now that the nation was at war.
Unlike the draft for the Civil War, the act specifically prohibited the hiring of substitutes:
No person liable to military service shall hereafter be permitted or allowed to furnish a substitute for such service; nor shall any substitute be received, enlisted, or enrolled in the military service of the United States; and no such person shall be permitted to escape such service or to be discharged therefrom prior to the expiration of his term of service by the payment of money or any other valuable thing whatsoever as consideration his release from military service or liability there to.
The first registration under the act, for men age 21-31, was set for June 5, 1917. 18 year olds were set to be registered in 1918.
In 1918, the U.S. Supreme Court held the Act constitutional.