Evening star., 1940-09-20
District Pushes
Draft Boards
Personnel PIdns
1000 or More to Be
Named Registrars
For24 Areas

District selective service officials
today pushed ahead with the work
of choosing persons to serve on
District draft boards and arrange
ments for registrars and other
machinery for the forthcoming
draft, final plan for the machinery
having been adopted by the Com
missioners.
AS far as is possible, is was an
nounced, all draft workers would be
limited to residents and bona flde
citizens of the District. Further
more, Brig. Gen. Albert l.. Cox,
selective service executive for the
District, announced that members
of the local draft boards would be
limited to residents of the various
local draft board areas.
Gen. Cox said today that two
additional officers of the District
National Guard had been ordered
to active duty with the city's selec-
tive service administration. They
are 1t. Col. Walter S. Welsh of the
Judge advocate generals department
and Maj. Hugh Everett jr.. OF the
inspector generals department.
An increase of five in the number
of local draft board areas and draft
boards was approved late yesterday
by the Commissioners on recon-
mendations by Gen. Cox and his
assistants and liaison officials,
raising the numbers to "a. He
called for the employment of be-
tween 1000 and 4,500 registrars,
SO as to prevent excessively long
hours of work for the staff.
Necessitates Boundary Changes.
The boundaries of the new local
draft board areas are not to be
published for several days, Gen.
Cox said, since is was found neces-
sary to change the areas of most
of the sections of the District from
the original plan, recently an
nounced.
However, it was said the number
of public schools used as registration
places. October Is, would be in
creased from 38 to at least At. If
one of the high schools is used as
two registration places, the number
will be At and if separate place is
assigned to each registration plan,
the number will be 48.
The approved increase in the num-
ber of local draft boards and in the
number of registration plans had
been anticipated, since the original
plan was based on the assumption
of approval of the recent Senate
draft bill, calling for the conscrip-
ton of men between the ages of
81 to 81, whereas the final act called
for men 81 to 35.
In this connection, it was said, the
extent of the new registration areas
would conform to the plan Of ma
tional selective draft officials that
any one area should not contain a
population of more than 10000 per-
sons
To Pay Executive Secretaries.
Under the revised plans adopted
by the Commissioners, each local
board would be provided with paid
executive secretary, whose salary
might vary according to the number
of registrants expected in each area.
AS the plan now stands. each local
draft board area would be serviced
by a board of three members, an
executive secretary, physician, an
adviser to regiStrantS and Govern
ment appeal agent, plus the neces-
sary registrantS and clerks.
For the most part, it was said,
-, - ~, I,
trants, but any additional help would
be drawn from the long list of volun-
teers. including members of the
American Legion, the Junior Board
OF Commerce, the various citizens
associations and other civic bodies
which have offered their aid where
needed. In this connection, Paul
Edwards, director of the District
Work Projects Administration, has
offered the services of his paid staff
and clients for any kind of needed
service.
Originally it was thought that
some $500 school teachers could
handle the registration Of poten-
tial drafteeS, but it was decided
That since registration places would
be open from 7 am. to 9 pm. no
worker should be required to stay
at the task that long. 1t was
planned to enlist a corps of nearly
double that number. This arrange
ment is being planned by officials
of the public school system.
Gen. Cox repeated that any out
of-towners here on the day of regis
tration might register at any one
of the District registration places
and that he would send their cards
to the Governors of their home
States.