Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-12-08

aspirations In David Lawrence.
1874. Some said he would yield to
this or that group influence and
couldn't be as firm as an admins
traitor had to be. Some elements In
organized labor said he would be
too hArd-boiled with labor and
wouldn't play ball with the unions.
Some in the selective service bu-
reaucracy feared Mr.. McNutt would
remove Maj. Gen. Hershey.
All In all, President Roosevelt
heard plenty Of comments about
the manpower control post but In
the end he gave 1t to the man who
has been trying as head Of the War
Manpower Commission to do an
adequate Job with inadequate au-
thority.
Many Sided Problem.
The objections to Mr.. McNutt will
IN time answer themselves. II any,
body charged with the task Of han
ding manpower in America can
come out Of 1t by 1914 without max
Ing as many enemies as there are
people employed In America and
still maintain q political strength,
such q superman deserves to be
President, for he will be q man
capable Of performing miracles.
II. on the other hand, Mr.. Nc
Nuts knowledge Of public psychol-
ogy, gained through his experience
In political office, enables him to
understand that you can't treat the
American people like children and
that you can't administer local draft
boards without giving them the Of
f1ce space and the ONCE help and
the explicit instructions they need
to carry cut the purposes of the law,
then he will have proved a valuable
addition to the executive personnel
Of the Nations war effort.
Manpower control Is a military
problem, labor problem, business
and industrial problem and, above
all, a human problem. If It is to be
administered by anybody 1t must
not be a man with only one segment
Of vision obtained in only one cate
CORY. Thus, the military personnel
have dominated some key posts in
the selective service and they have
not helped matters much by their
arbitrariness.
Also, 1t would appear that the
original selective service law con-
tains enough legal power to main
tain national or even Statewide
quotas so As to provide for induc-
tons on a somewhat uniform basis.
What selective service needs is
an efdcient administrator and while
Maj. Gen. Hershey is a well-mean-
ing. conscientious man, it is ap-
parent that he has allowed the un-
defined demand for men on a hit
or-miss schedule to upset his ham
ding Of the draft and only recently,
Tor instance, was the size of the
Army fixed for him or a Qualification
made Of the status of married men
or OF those in the upper age groups.
Today, the word has gone forth
oficially that men above 80 years of
age will not be indicted. The aver
age citizen will wonder why this
wasn't ordered = long time ago. 1t
would have saved many a business
organization from disruption. Like
wise-and this isn't Maj. Gen. Her
shey's fault-it will be wondered
why voluntary enlistments were not
halted 50 that the inductions could
be accomplished on an orderly basis.
Many business executives will tes-
tify that the rush Of their younger
workers to recruiting stations did
more to upset their supply Of skilled
labor than any requests for occupa-
tional deferments.
Pioneer Gigantic Task.
When 1t comes to freezing" men
m positions, the prevention Of pirat-