Evening star., 1943-04-10
Ineffective Policy

In a recent address before the
Academy of Political Sciences, Gren-
vile Clark, author of the Selective
Service ACT and the pending Austin
Wadsworth bill, said that the Gov
ernment, lacking any kind of ma
tional service legislation, has been
driven to "disjointed, confused and
Ineffective methods" of coping with
the manpower shortage.
The use of the Selective Service Act
as a club to drive men from non
essential to essential employment, he
said, is wrong in principle and de-
ficient in results. 1T is wrong in
principle" he declared, because it
degrades and discredits military duty
by holding it up as threat or pen
atty. whereas it should be treated as
a privilege and an honor. It is in
effective because the threats can
apply only to able bodied men of
military age, and virtually all of these
are already in the armed forces or in
vital war work"
It is interesting to note the rela-
ton between his comments and the
news of the past few days.
The Maritime Commission saws that
the high turnover rate in the ship
yards-11.2 per cent of the total
working force per month-has left
the yards with II 900 fewer employees
than are needed to meet building
quotas. 1t simply has not been pos
slble to enroll enough new workers
to meet expanding employment
needs and to compensate for the
turnover loss. which is due more to
housing and transportation condi-
tons than any wage question. Unless
this situation changes. the commits
sion says, we will have to content our
selves with fewer of the ships which
are most urgently needed-tankers
aircraft carriers, troop transports
and escort vessels.
Congress and the Manpower Com
mission have been trying to en-
courage a back-to- farm move
ment by holding out the prospect of
Graft exemption to AGRICULTURAL
workers. Here, obviously, is a hit-or-
miss proposition which is difficult to
control and easily capable of doing
more harm than good. Consequently,
1t IS not surprising to learn from
State selective service directors and
the Manpower Commission that in
ouStry is beginning to complain of
Its loss of workers because men who
want to avoid the draft are drifting
back to the farms.
indicative of mounting official
concern at this trend is the dis
closure that Undersecretary of War
Patterson has been in communica-
ton with Manpower Commissioner
McNutt to prevent wholesale" labor
turnover in industry because of the
back-to the farm pressure that has
oeen applied Meanwhile the Man.
power Commission has no statistics
on the extent Of the movement, and
apparently, no definite plan to cope
with it.
These are by no means all of the
instances in which the absence of
any real manpower program is cut
ting into the effectiveness of the war
effort, but they serve as illustrations
1t is a pressing and increasingly
serious matter which cannot be dealt
with through such stop gap measures
as the Presidents direction to Mr..
McNutt to prevent workers from
changing jobs to obtain higher paw.
The only real solution lies in national
service legislation along the lines of
the Austin-Wadsworth bill, and the
only real question is how much worse
the situation will get before the
administration comes to the support
OF such measure.