The Wrangell sentinel., 1940-08-09
CONSCRIPTLON
 BILL OF SOME
 KIND CERTAIN
By JACK sTINNETT
 A-P Political 5Writer)

WASHINGTON, Aug. - John ny, you'd better be looking for your gun.
 If you are an able-bodied male. be- tween 21 and 31, without depend ents and not working in a key pos ition in some defense industry, you are going to need it.
 That is the way the thing looks now, although I have pointed out before that the compulsory military sevice bill is in for a battle before it clears the Senate and House and is signed by the President. A law in some form it will become, eer- tainly-the only time that any sort of compulsory military service has become operative in the United States during peace time.
 The way the bill looks at this writ ing, about 12,OO0,000 young men are going to register with their res pective draft boards sometime in September Within a month, 400,- GOO will be told to report for mili- tary training, and although some will have legitimate excuses which will have exempted them, the rest can take 1t and like it or go to jail.
 We Need A Big Stick
 The reason for the bill-and a majority of the folks back home seem to agree that the reason isl adequate-is primarily that We were caught without a navy adequate toI defend both oceans Not having a navy that can take care of the At lantic as well as the Pacific (best estimates are that it will be 1947 before we can reach that state of preparadness) the idea is that we must have an army which will searel the pants off anybody.
 Opponents of the bill aren't ar guing that we don't need the army |. they're just claiming that wei can get enough men by enlistment. The army people, having beenI through all that before, say it can't be done, despite recent enlistments of about a thousand a day. They claim, and history backs them up, that shortly this voluntary business will reach the saturation point and they'll have days when nobody comes in and says T wanna be a sojer"
 The bill currently provides forI registration of men who are IS and not yet 64 Only those between 21I and 45 are liable for military service but the others may have to serve In home defense units. There's a probability that men under 21 and over 45 will not have to register at present
 Of the estimated 12,000,000 men between 21 and 31, one out of 30l will be called to the colors for 12l months service, around the last of September The idea is to call 400,-I 900 more men come spring and 6OO,000 more in the fall of 1941 The bill states as strongly as Con- gress can that all should be given their jobs back when they return from duty. In the case of businesses not involved in interstate commerce, all Congress can do is urge.
 You Can Sit It Out, Too
 Exemptions will include men em-I ployed in agriculture or other oc-I equations necessary to national health, safety or interest; men with dependents, and men mentally, phy-I sically or morally unfit
 Selection will be made by lottery Draft dodgers" (men filing falseI returns) will be subject to fiveI years in the hoosegow or $10,000I fine.
 It's called the -Wadsworth bill and the White House hasn't given it's official nod to the mea- sure. It may not go through but whether this one does or doesn't, Johnny, you'll get your gun. Un- less, of course, a Spitfire should squat in the lap of Hitler, Musso lini, Stalin & Co tthe & Co., being mostly Japan's war party) in which event I guess, Johnny, we could just go on about our business.