Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-05-14
By HUGH S. JOHNSON

TIVE drive for blanket defer
ments" from the draft or
selective service is the worst
thing that could happen to the
system.
Senator Vandenberg seems to
be leading the assault on the
ground that deferments for
married men have not been
absolutely uniform"
Why should they be uni
form? Why should man
otherwise eligible be able to
dodge the most solemn obliga-
ton of citizenship by changing
his marital status?
Marriage isn't the question.
Dependency is the only question
in which the public and the gov
eminent should be interested.
On this question there has not
been regimented uniformity
among the boards, but if the
cases of resulting hardship were
examined under a microscope
they wouldn't amount TO one
one hundredth of per cent Of
the total selection.
Selective service headquarters
and the army itself, after Undue
ton. are alert 10 see that no
final Injustice is done.
The alternative TO entruSting
the question of relative availa-
bility for military service TO
committees of neighbors familiar
with relative conditions is 10 try
10 do the trick by blanket ex-
emptions enacted by Congress.
IT NEVER did work.
Il The stencil and the scandal
of the Civil War draft-which
ruined it and made it fail-was
the creation of autocratic privi-
legged classes.
The two great errors of the
World War draft were blanket
exemption for shipyard workers
and another rule for the selec-
ton of married men on whom
their families were dependent
but where the parents of the
wife were ready. able and will
ing to support the dependent
family"
The pressure for blanket de-
ferments now for such all-inclu-
sive classes as students. me-
chanics and married men" is
becoming overwhelming.
The draft regulations are ex-
ceptionally generous and aware
of the relative urgency Of every
national need. No students, for
example, were draftable under
the original act until July. 1871,
the idea being not to break up
the academic year.
As TO students or apprentices
in training for the highly tech
meal services of modern war
who can demonstrate that they
are making proper progress in
that training, all are subject to
deferment as is every man who
is already qualified and can
show himself to be in any way a
necessary man in necessary in
dustry.
All these general rules and
policies have been and are being
worked out by the selective serv-
ice organization in the closest
possible cooperation with the
Knudsen Hillman organization
in OPM.
This is not. as has been re-
Gently suggested in several edi-
torials and in the President
press conference of May 2, any
belated act of planning or dis
covery by selective service. 1t
was intrinsic in the 1918 act,
carried forward into this one,
and has been practiced since the
beginning.
TIIE real trouble is that since
Il Selective service has no di-
rector, it has no voice.
Its printed record on these
subjects without a word of COM
ment would be enough TO set the
critics back on their heels.
But Mr.. Dykstra, its titular
head, has never been on more
than a part-time basis and is
now not even on that basis.
His assistant, General Her
shey, is after all only an assist
ant and could not now. without
considerable assumption =
which would probably be kicked
back in his teeth - take any
fortnight position or change any
principal policy.
If political pressure groups of
special privilege can use their
hokum methods to escape the
most serious and sacred obliga-
ton of citizenship, one of our
greatest strengths will become
a rotten reed and a stencil to