Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-12-13
Manpower Unification Brings
Home Lesson of Total War
Indignation of Agencies Under McNutt, Only
Alternative to Chaotic Inefficency, Accepted
By Liberty.Loving Public
BY Felix Morley.

1.-THE most effective mobilization and
utilization of the national manpower," as
promised by the Presidents executive
order of December S. necessarily must
await the many adjustments and admin
istrative arrangements on which
Chairman McNutt of the War Manpower
Commission Is now at work. But it is
apparent already that in three vital re-
spects the current reorganization repre-
sents development which is the more
desirable because In each case there Is no
workable alternative.
OF these three ma or accomplishments
that of the greatest importance is the
transfer Of the Selective Service System
to the War Manpower Commission. The
significance of this shift is emphasized
by the fact that in its previous auton-
omous character the Selective Service
System, under the wise direction of Gen.
Hershey, was one of the most democratic
and efficiently administered Of all the
new governmental agencies.
Gearing Of Agencies Needed.
One OF the outstanding characteristics
OF this war, however, Is that efficiency in
autonomous units of Government is not
enough to insure success. Indeed, the
more competent an individual agency,
the greater may be the necessity of
moderating It's activity to that of less
rapidly revolving operations. In total
war what counts most is the skill with
which one part OF the complicated gov
ernmental mechanism Is geared to other
parts, to insure that all shall run at
balanced speed as an integrated whole.
Heretofore there has been no unifica-
ton between the supply of men for
actual military service and that Of men-
and women-for equally imperative war
production. Indeed the two operations
have definitely been proceeding at cross
purposes, which helps to explain why
serious manpower crisis has developed
even before the military services have
placed any very stable number of troops
in action.
This essential unifcation together
with the correlative banning of all but
is now Accomplished Uncle Sam no
longer has two sets Of architects working
Independently on plans for a single struc-
ture, with each group in total ignorance
Of what the other is designing.
Labor Placement.
Scarcely less vital than the integra-
ton of military and civilian manpower
needs in single orderly program is the
transfer of the United States Employ
ment Service to the War Manpower
Commission. This insures that the in
dispensable mechanism of labor place
ment shall be under the control of the
same agency which now has real au-
thority to supervise manpower policy
This country has been slow to recog-
nize the Importance OF a national system
Of public employment exchanges in
peacetime, and the imperative need of
such an organization in the conduct of
total war. Moreover, when the time
comes to unscramble wartime opera
tions, to return to normal occupations
the millions of hastily modified war
workers, the need for a national en-
ployment system will be at least equally
acute.
Without this agency there can be no
adequate statistical information on en-
ployment needs; no orderly system OF
transfer from areas of labor surplus to
areas of acute shortage; no successful
prevention Of piracy and "hoarding'
in employment practice; no Standard
ization Of training and recruiting pro-
cedures