It is said that "it were better than an hundred guilty go unpunished than that one righteous suffer wrongfully" and judging the work of the war department by its past record, we fear that many of those posted as "slackers" are not "slackers" by any means and the publication of their names as such would be doing them a rank injustice.
When the call was being sent out for drafted men to appear for examination after the United States entered the war, many men who were called did not appear and were posted as "slackers" and the officers were ordered to arrest them. It was found that many of the men thus posted were already in the service, having volunteered, and some of them were already overseas. The publication of these men who had volunteered as "slackers," when others had to be drafted and were certified as being loyal American soldiers (which they were) was a rank injustice.
In one of the alleged "slacker" lists, the list appears the name of a young man who had died before he had a chance to serve and there is no doubt that hundreds of such cases have occurred. If we had any assurance that the "slacker" list was correct, we would gladly give it prominence on the first page but we have no such assurance. 