The New York Times/1918/11/11/Give French Here Time to Enlist
GIVE FRENCH HERE TIME TO ENLIST
Crowder Suspends for Sixty Days Operation of New Treaty.
EXPLAINS THE CONDITIONS
After Time Limit Expires French Citizens Here Will be Classified as Americans Are.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10.—The treaty which brings into military service citizens of the United States resident in French and French citizens of military age living here became effective last Friday. Local boards in America were instructed today by Provost Marshal General Crowder to suspend the involuntary induction sixty days, to allow French citizens to enlist voluntarily for military service or leave for France to enter military service.
The announcement made by Provost Marshal General Crowder reads:
"The convention providing that American citizens in France of the ages specified in the laws of the United States prescribing compulsory military service, and French citizens in the United States between the ages of 20 and 44, both inclusive, shall be subject to military service in the country in which they are, unless within periods prescribed by the convention they enlist or enroll in the forces of their own country or leave the United States or France, as the case may be, for service in their own country, has become effective by the exchange, on Nov. 8, of ratification between the United States and the French Republic.
"In order to comply with the provisions of the convention, local boards in America are being instructed by the Provost Marshal General's office to suspect involuntary induction into the American forces of every French citizen affected by the convention for a period of sixty days, to allow these French citizens to enlist or enroll or leave this country for service with the French forces. At the expiration of this sixty-day period noFrench citizen in America will be entited to deferred classification on the ground of alienage, but will be reclassified in the same manner as are American citizens. It should be especially borne in mind that this is not a draft by France of Franch citizens in the United States, not does it affect any French citizen who has already been inducted into the army of the United States. The convention merely provides that French citizens in the United States between the ages of 20 and 44, both inclusive, shall become subject to military service and entitled to exemption and discharge therefrom under the laws of the United States, unless within the prescribed time they voluntarily enlist or enroll in the French Army or return to France for military service, or unless within the same period they are granted diplomatic exemption from service in the forces of the United States by the French Government. The diplomatic certificates of exemption are to be issued by the French Ambassador and may be executed in his name, or by the French consular officials in this country, to whom Ambassador Jusserand has delegated this authority.
"No application for diplomatic exemption may be made nor exemptions granted after entry into military service. The certificate of exemption may be special or general, temporary or conditional, and may be modified, renewed or revoked in the discretion of the government granting them.
"Without assuming responsibility of providing transport or cost of transportation, the two governments have agreed, so far as possible, to facilitate the return of citizens to their own country. No citizen of either country who enters the military service of the other shall, by reason of such service, be considered, after the convention shall have expired or after his discharge, to have lost his nationality or be under any obligations to the country in whose forces he shall have served.
"Termination of the convention may be accomplished by a sixty-day notice from one country to the other, whereupon any citizen of either country incorporated in the military service of the other under the provisions of the convention shall be discharged as soon as possible."