Evening star., 1943-10-30
New Service Plan

cation for physical or other reasons
does not relieve men of draft age of
their obligation to serve the country,
Representative Clare Luce has intro
duced legislation in the House which
might be regarded as a compromise
version of a National Service Act.
At the least, it has definite posi-
bilit1es of meeting a critical national
need.
During hearings earlier this month
on legislation to defer the draft of
fathers, Undersecretary of War Pat
terson warned that the employment
problem has reached an extremely
critical stage. In some sections, he
said, it is becoming difficult to find
even inexperienced persons to man
the war machines. Unless there is
replacement ready-and replace
ments are not available-no man,
skilled or unskilled, can safely be
taken out of a war plant or permitted
to leave of his own accord. Nor can
we longer afford not to take drastic
measures to supply the hundreds of
thousands of new workers needed to
meet expanding production sched-
uleS. Yet in none of these respects
are we measuring up to the require
mentS imposed by this war.
War plants are losing workers that
they cannot replace, losing them to
the draft, to the farms and for other
reasons. The turnover rate is dis
graceful. In many plants it runs as
high as 100 per cent year. Judge
Patterson told of some instances in
which plants have had to engage as
many as 10000 workers to get net
increase OF 1000 in their working
force. The 5000 others come in, get
their training, and 60 job-hunting
elsewhere, simply because there is
no effective way Of requiring them
to stay where they are needed. Nor
is the picture any better with respect
to the effort to induce workers to
leave less essential jobs to 60 into
war work. This vast reserve" of
potential war workers in nonWar
manufacturing and in the trades
and services has hardly been
touched
This failure to put all of our re-
sources into the prosecution of the
war, and it is failure of which all
thoughtful persons must be ashamed,
results from the fact that the Gov
ernment, while it has authority to
send some men into battle, lacks
authority to require other men to
supply them with the munitions and
other lnstrumentalities of war The
bill offered by Mrs. Luce is an at
tempt to cure this evil in part,
Under her measure an Army and
Navy Maintenance Corps would be
created. Every person covered by
the Selective Service Act would be
liable for training and service in the
corps, under the direction of the
President, The corps would be
auxiliary to. but not part of, the
Army. Its members would receive
Army pay, according to rank, how
ever, and would be entitled to the
benefits and protection conferred by
the Selective Service Act.
1t would affect principally those
deferred from military service for
physical reasons, age and marital
status. Unless already engaged in
essential war work, they would be
liable to induction into the corps
and assignment to such work.
An important objection to the plan
is that persons already deferred from
military service on occupational
grounds, so long as they remain de-
ferred, would also be deferred from
the corps Presumably they would
continue to work at prevailing rates
Of pay while another man. inducted
through the corps, might have to
work beside him at Army pay. That
is a situation which could easily lead
to a great deal Of dissatisfaction
and might defeat the intent of the
program.
On the credit side, however. the
plan would insure a notable increase
IN the available war labor force, it
would put stop to job turnover. it
would quickly discourage unwar-
ranted absenteeism and it should
act as deterrent to strikes. It
would have these effects because all
offenders would Immediately face in
ductlon into the corps. At the same
time, 1t would not be a money-saving
proposition for employers, since they
would be required to pay the prevail
ing wage rates, the excess above the
corps pay going into the Treasury.
1t may be that closer examination
will reveal bugs in this plan. But
1t appears to be the most promising
substitute for an outright National
Service Act which has yet been put
forward, and therefore it deserves
careful consideration.
A so-called green American tank