Evening star., 1943-09-15

:
lective machin- David Lawrence.
cry would be completely controlled
by civilians.
Congress, moreover, believed that
the local boards would be able to
select the able bodied and the men
who were not employed in essential
industry and that quotas would not
be fixed narrowly by local units
but the Statewide or even county,
wide areas so that the categories
of those drafted could at least ap-
proximate uniformity.
Congress, to be sure, cannot it
self administer complex thing like
selective service. 1t must delegate
authority to particular agency
and expect that agency to issue the
necessary regulations to carry out
the purposes of Congress.
Hershey First Mistake.
The first mistake was to put a
military man-Gen. Hershey-in
charge of selective service and es-
pecially one who may owe his fu-
ture pay and rank to military men
who can press him for unlimited
use of manpower without regard to
civilian production for war pur-
poses.
Recently high official who is
familiar with the manpower short
ages that have arisen in factories
doing essential war contract work
said that if 100000 men were taken
today from the Army and put back
to work in our war plants the prog
ress of Americas war effort would
be immeasurably increased and i'm
proved.
The whole selective machinery is
dominated by the military view
point, which is to get as much man.
power into it's hands as possible.
The same type of complaint has
been directed at the military for
accumulating unnecessarily large
quantities of raw materials, which
only resulted in maldistribution
of available materials and serious
shortages.
Only when President Roosevelt
saw the emergence of this conflict
between civilian and military claims
and delegated broad powers to DON
aid Nelson of the War Production
Board did the public realize that
these conflicts had become serious.
Failed to Cure Situation.
But this did not cure the situa-
ton, and Mr.. Nelson was unable
to cope with the military handling
of a civilian task-selection of citi-
zens for service in the armed
service-and subsequently the Presi-
dent, again realizing the acute ma
ture of the problem, created War
Manpower Commission with Paul
McNutt as its chairman.
But Mr.. Roosevelt did not require
the selective service machinery to
alter it's regulations or directives.
Not only were bulletins and memo
randa issued by the War Manpower
Commission disregarded by selective
service boards and headquarters, but
no change was made in the regula-
tions whereby employers were denied
as matter of right the opportunity
to present evidence at oral hearings
concerning the need for essential
employees.
Manufacturers of important war
products like aircraft became dis
couraged and lately the turnover
and shortage have become so great
that desperate efforts are being
made to solve the problem by spe-
cial deferments on the West Coast.
Board Discretion Needed.
What Congress ought to do is not
to pass any legislation with respect
to fathers or single men as such,
but to lay down rules requiring the
selective service system to function
as originally intended and prohibit
Ing the national selective serv-
ice headquarters or any State
directors or local units from being
manned by anyone in the military
service. Likewise Congress should
give the local boards discretion in
filling quotas so that they may fill
them from able-bodied men up to
As irrespective of whether or not
married and based only on whether
they are employed in essential in
dustries.
While the vast majority of the
men above 33 are not wanted be-
cause they are not physically strong
enough to stand the strain of train
ing nowadays, there are many who
are neither married nor employed
in essential industries who could be
drafted and should be before any
fathers are inducted There are some
common sense standards that could
be applied, but unfortunately they
have not been prescribed, and now
the country runs the risk of seeing
rigid legislation passed which may
interfere with the f1exibility that
ought to be given to local boards
to deal with each case on its merits.
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