Registration day, which was fixed for June 5, 1917, partook of the character of an election day. The young manhood of the country of the prescribed ages trooped to the registration places of their districts like voters depositing ballots at polling booths. It was a national roll call of the pick of civilian manhood available for military duty, and yielded an enrollment of 9,649,938 from which the first army was to be drafted. "The registration," reported the Government, "was accomplished in a fashion measuring up to the highest standards of Americanism. The young men came to the registration places enthusiastic; there was no hint of a slacking spirit anywhere, except in a few cases where misguided persons had been prevailed upon to attempt to avoid their national obligation." The machinery for the selective draft had merely been started. Only the groundwork had been laid. The principal operation--the draft itself--had to be undertaken, and the process was a slow one. Half the men who registered claimed exemption from military service for a multitude of reasons, but as not more than 6 per cent were to be chosen to compose the first citizen army, this was not important even if most of the exemption claims were justified and allowed. The outstanding fact was that the registrants were all on an equal footing and that their mustering brought nearer the realization of the President's dream of a "citizenry trained" without favoritism or discrimination. The son of the millionaire and of the laborer, the college-bred man and the worker forced to earn his living from early youth, were to march side by side in the ranks and practice marksmanship and trench digging together. Great Britain and France had democratized their armies; the United States did the same. The President increased the number of men to be drafted for the first army from 500,000 to 687,000 in order to use drafted men to bring the regular army and the National Guard to their full strength. Thus there were 687,000 men to be selected from a registration of 9,649,938. The quota required from each State, based upon each State's number of registrants, was determined in that proportion. The draft, which was practically a great lottery to establish the order in which the registrants were to be called into war service, took place on July 20, 1917, in Washington. As it was anticipated that fully half of the men called would either be exempted or rejected after medical examination, the exemption boards appointed throughout the country, located in 4,557 districts, were required to call double the number of their quota for examination in the order in which the men's numbers appeared on the district list after the drawing. This meant a call of 1,374,000 men.