Evening star., 1945-01-29
Monpower Middle
Loid to Army Itself
Observer Predicts Cure If Draft
Age Ceiling Is Lifted
By David Laurence


By David Laurence
The Congress is at last discovering
the manpower muddle. Having sat idly by
for four years and having failed to note
how the armed services as well as civil
ian industry wasted manpower, the
Senators and Representatives now are
finding themselves confronted with re-
quests for coercive National Service
Act which, of course, is the nearest thing
to totalitarianism this democracy has
been asked to accept since the war
began
There Is not only no need for COM
pulsory work law now but there never
has been any need for it. There has
been, however, need right along for
efficiency and competence instead of in
efficiency and incompetence in selecting
men for the armed services and for in
dustry but Washington's way, especially
in wartime, Is to cover up blundering
and then expect extreme measures to
be taken to extricate the blunders from
their dilemma
Congress, in 1910, passed a Selective
Service Law but did not insist that it be
administered so that younger men would
go first. Politics and pressure groups
influenced the means of selection and
SO did the White House. Thus America
did not have true selective service for
long while, but hodge-podge of cum
bersome regulations.
When the administrators of the Sc
lective Service Act did finally emerge
in 1914 from their strait jackets of pres
sure influence and ordered men to be
taken by age groups, America took her
first constructive step forward selecting
a fighting army.
Bungled by the Military.
When some of the military men ap-
peal now for National Service Act,
they are asking for a relief from a stu
alton which they themselves have
bungled. Why did they overestimate air
force needs for instance and under
estimate infantry requirements?
They have wasted manpower to such
an extent that behind the lines today
in the noncombat areas are hundreds of
thousands of men who are capable of
fighting, while at home in America also,
are hundreds of thousands of men who
can take those same military Jobs i'm
mediately behind the lines.
The argument that because a mans
eyes are bad or he has bad ear drum.
or because he once had a spot on his
lung he is unable to serve in the So
called supply units repairing a truck or
working typewriter-jobs which absorb
millions of men overseas-is Just an
alibi for the unwillingness of the armed
services to face the truth about the
use of manpower
But the armed services need not take
all those who have been disqualified
for minor physical defects. The man
power shortage is supposed to be acute
on the home front in industry. The
simple way to get industrial manpower
Is to follow the scheme that has been
already proved uccessful-namely to
draft for the armed services ANYBODY
who is not employed in an essential in
dustry or business or who is not key
labor union or on farm or on a rail-
road or in other vital services
1t will be asked whether this isn't
the present practice and whether the
existing system hasn't failed neverthe-
less to provide the manpower. The
question is answered by stating that the
Army itself is responsible for a ruling
uro L>or
men above the age of 38 are at present
exempt from the draft for military
service. Indeed, ever since it was an
nounced that men as young as 30
wouldn't be called soon, the manpower
shortage began to develop crisis
Urges Ceiling Removal
Strangely enough in the last few days
under the threat of legislation, applica-
| tions for jobs in war plants have been
| pouring in and in many a plant the
crisis has been solved. The plain answer
| then is to remove the ceiling on draft
eXemptions-it can be done without
legislation-and make anybody up to the
age of As subject to military service Ii
he doesn't take or hold on to an essen
tial job
If the Army took few here and there
| from that age group or if it took enough
men only to release the able bodied
young soldiers in the supply service
behind the combat lines. the flow to the
war plants of needed manpower at nome
would be continuous
This isn't plan involving the volun-
| tary principle altogether, but as between
| this and coercion with Jail penalties or
with laws compelling men to work for
somebody's private profit in so-called
Army battalions, there is no comparison
/ Congress could well insist that the
| President ask the manpower agencies
and the selective service Office and the
armed forces to get together and re-
move the present ceiling on draft ages
for military service and let legislation
stay on the shelf for while The man.
| power shortage would be cured over,
night and remain cured for months to
| come.
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