The Selective Service Act of 1917 was a law passed by the United States Congress on May 18, 1917. It was studied in December 1916 and presented to President Woodrow Wilson immediately after the breaking of diplomatic relations with Germany in February 1917.
It authorized the federal government to enlist in the US Armed Forces the hundreds of thousands of soldiers that the US needed to meet the needs of the European front. It was subsequently abolished at the end of the conflict, in November 1918.
