Area Postal Figures Indicate 25 Per Cent Did Not Register

As many as 25 per cent of the 19- and 20-year-old males in this area may have failed to register for the draft during the two-week sign up period, preliminary statistics compiled by Boston postal officials indicate.

Approximately 32,600 males from the Boston metropolitan area registered for the draft in compliance with President Carter's order, Jean Babcock, spokesman for the Boston district postal service, said yesterday.

Census figures indicate that, given normal population movement, there are about 54,000 19- and 20-year-old males in the area in addition to a population of about 29,000 college students.

Assuming that two-thirds of college-age students leave the area for the summer--a liberal figure given the influx of 19- and 20-year-olds for summer educational programs and jobs--and that two of every five natives leave the area for the summer, there are about 45,000 19- and 20-year-old males in the area.

These figures are based on current college enrollment statistics and 1970 census figures for nine- and ten-year-old males.

Close, But...

Even given a substantial margin of error, however, the numbers indicate that the government's drive to register men may fall far short of the Selective Service's stated goal of 98-per-cent compliance nationwide. Anti-draft activists have estimated that about 15 per cent of the four million men they asked to register would refuse.

Selective Service spokesman Craig Green said yesterday that the figures may be low because legal manueverings the weekend before registration began may have confused some people.

"There are still people filtering in because of the injunction" against the president's program issued by a Philadelphia district court, Green said.

That ruling, overturned by Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, said male- only draft registration is unconstitutional because men are entitled to "equal protection" under the law.

Green and other government spokesmen yesterday refused to confirm or deny the figures, saying it will take at least 90 days for regional Internal Revenue Service offices to computerize lists of registrants and for the Selective Service to compile preliminary figures.

A random sampling of national post offices--including main branches in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Denver--indicates that postal officials--who were not required to tally the number of postcards they processed--did not record figures.

Accountant

An official in the Boston district post office kept track of the number of registrants because he wanted to have the figures available in case the situation arose in the future, Babcock said.

In Cambridge, the site of an anti-draft protest Saturday that closed the Harvard Square office on Mt. Auburn St. for several hours, about 1640 19- and 20-year-old males registered.

In all of the other cities surveyed, only the main branch of the New York post office--which counted what one employee called a "surprisingly low" 1215 registrants--tallied the number of post-cards it processed