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Show WAFT. United States to Meet Emergency in France. NUMBER IS RAISED To Have 2,500,000 Under Un-der Arms by January, Janu-ary, 1919. WASHINGTON. April 3 Measures to speed up the draft program are in contempaltion and an official announcement an-nouncement is expected soon. The intention is to meet the emergency emer-gency in France. For that reason the 800,000 to be called this year will be called more rapidly than was previously prev-iously planned War department officials said no arrangements were in sight looking to calling out more than the 800,000 men it was planned to take into tbe service. serv-ice. To Have 2,500,000 in 1919. Reports that the draft would bo raised from 800,000 to 1,500,000 were ueniea. uniciais ao not regaru it as possible that more men will be sent abroad this year than the department already has arranged to summon, even with additional British shipping made avai la bV as troop transports. There are now under arms here and in Europe more than 1,500,000 Ameriacn soldiers. The number will have been raised to about 2,500,000 by the end of the year, counting drafted men volunteers volun-teers and special technical forces to be enlisted. If it is possible to get a total of 1.500,000 men to France by-January by-January 1 next (ho best previous hopes of the war department will have been realized and there still will be a force of almost equal size in training train-ing here. The present effort is directed more towards getting the men to France early in the year to meet tbe emergencies there than toward increasing in-creasing the number to be sent during the year. Many factors, it was said, enter into any proposal to increase the number of men under training here. They must be drawn largely from agriculture agricul-ture and industrial fields and the allies" supply lines as well as the Americans' are largely dependent upon American food and supplies. |