"To this end our people must draw close in one compact front against a common foe. But this cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose. All must pursue one purpose. The nation needs all men; but it needs each man, not in the field that will most pleasure him, but in the endeavor that will best serve the common good. Thus, though a sharpshooter pleases to operate a trip hammer for the forging of great guns and an expert machinist desires to march with the flag, the nation is being served only when the sharpshooter marches and the machinist remains at his levers. "The whole nation must be a team, in which each man shall play the part for which he is best fitted. To this end, Congress has provided that the nation shall be organized for war by selection; that each man shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good to call him. "The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is a new thing in our history and a landmark in our progress. It is a new manner of accepting and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves with thoughtful devotion to the common purpose of us all. It is in no sense a conscription of the unwilling; it is, rather, selection from a nation which has volunteered in mass. It is no more a choosing of those who shall march with the colors than it is a selection of those who shall serve an equally necessary and devoted purpose in the industries that lie behind the battle line." The President had strongly espoused the selective draft in preference to the voluntary system of raising an army organization. He had pointed out that many forms of patriotic service were open to the people, and emphasized that the military part of the service, important though it was, was not, under modern war conditions, the most vital part. The selective draft enabled the selection for service in the army of those who could be most readily spared from the pursuit of other industries and occupations. There being a universal obligation to serve in time of war, the Administration felt the need of being empowered to select men for military service and select others to do the rest of the nation's work, either by keeping them in their existing employment, if that employment was useful for war purposes, or utilizing their services in a like field. "The volunteer system does not do this," he said. "When men choose themselves they sometimes choose without due regard to their other responsibilities. Men may come from the farms or from the mines or from the factories or centers of business who ought not to come but ought to stand back of the armies in the field and see that they get everything that they need and that the people of the country are sustained in the meantime."