Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1950-10-20
Gen. Hershey Predicts
Draft Trends
BY Douglas W. Troll
State Director, Selective
Service System

Last week, Major General Lewis
B. Hershey, National Director of
Selective Service, spent the better
portion Of one morning being in
terviewed by members of the press.
Aim Of the questions was an at
tempt to predict draft trends, and
thought ! might point out to you
some Of the highlight questions and
answers.
A timely point was brought out
when the General spoke about con-
ditions in reference to exemptions.
zone of the things we've got to
fight with deferments," he said, sis
that some people think deferment
is an exemption. If we could ever
establish in our thinking that we
are in program which will last
generation-and the time is going
to come when he will be taken and
that he must make his dedication
to accepting it at some time. Whe-
Their he comes into the service as a
specialist or officer is beside the
point, but there is a certainty he is
going IN"
On the possibility of dropping the
age limit to Is, the National Direc-
tor stated, 1.-THE Committee of the
National Security Resources Board
is going to see what we can do in
the future. The Board spent three
hours. arguing the Is year old ques-
ton. They ended up by not taking
them"
Another problem of prime i'm
portance at this time was the vet
eran question-If the Army does
not lower the standards, how soon
will veterans have to be drafted?-
This was his reply: First of all,
the President said over the radio
3 million, therefore I have target
Of 3 million. AS I understand it,
the armed forces have set figure
somewhat lower than that. I had
probably been thinking in terms Of
2.3 million or something like that.
] don't know anything beyond the
last day of November-there are
10000 people / have to furnish be-
tween the first of September and
the S0th of November"
The interviewers questioned Gen.
eral Hershey about the raising of
is million men and Hershey stated
that it was not only his job to sup
ply the men but also to maintain
them at this figure He said, Eve
are going to get some by recruit
ing, but some Of the recruiting will
not help our pool because it will
come out Of our pool, so this 70O,-
600 that we thought We could get
out Of our is or IL million ought
to give us 100000 before next June
list. In order to bring up our forces
to 3 million and maintain them, we
would have to change the regula-
tons on dependency and secure the
repeal of the restriction against in
Quoting veterans under rs years Of
age. We have about million regis
tered below 26, but Only about 8
million classified, because we do
not classify a boy until he Is 10.
Now as far as can see, we will
not reach the 10 year old before
the end of this year. .
In answer to a query on what
the situation would be IN the event
Of a large scale war, General Her
shey said, Il hope that we can so
conduct ourselves that If there IS
another war tomorrow we are do
ing the best we can, and, il there
is, we could not have made any
better preparation. And think
that that applies to keeping under
26 because If there is a war, obvi-
ously the people ought to be as
good as you've got, and you don't
get worse except as you have to,
because man power gets less and
less fitted for it,
The matter Of raising the age
limit, If war should break out, was
also discussed. ''If Congress would
give US up to 4g the Director said.
Il certainly feel this morning that
I would recommend to the Presi-
dent that when you get above 25
you take 26. After all, no matter
whether it is war or peace you can
only take so many people at a
time"