How It Works

Last week Congress passed the conscription bill. This week the President signed it. A new thing had entered U. S. life: although the U. S. had conscripted its citizens in two wars, never before had it conscripted them in peace. Some 16,500,000 men, aged 21 to 36, forthwith became liable to compulsory military service. How, when, whether conscription would actually touch them was prescribed in 1) the bill, and 2) the selective system which the Army & Navy had long since prepared against a martial day.

The Bill laid down the general philosophy, rules, scope of conscription:

> "In a free society the obligations and privileges of military training and service should be shared generally in accordance with a fair and just system of selective compulsory . . . service."

> No more than 900,000 conscripts can be called in any one year (the Army plans to call 800,000 a year). They will be kept in training for one year, will then enter an enlisted reserve where they will be subject to recall for emergency service for ten years or until they are 45. They will not be subject to periodic recalls for further training. But if Congress finds the nation in peril before their initial year's service ends, they can be held under arms indefinitely.

> Prospective conscripts can volunteer for one year if they dislike being drafted (the Army prefers three-year terms for its volunteers, will continue to recruit on that basis). By law, both conscripts and one-year volunteers must be accepted "regardless of race or color." The Army nevertheless can (and probably will) use its powers of selection to keep down the proportion of Negroes to whites (present ratio: 1 to 53).

> Ordained ministers and theological students must register, but will not be drafted. College students also must register, may be drafted after (but not before) next July.

> Objectors "by reason of religious training and belief" will be classified for noncombatant service. If they object to any form of military service, and prove their sincerity, they can still be drafted for assignment to other "work of national importance, under civilian direction."

> Wholly exempt are: the Vice President of the U. S. (the President is not specifically exempt, because he is Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy), members of Congress, State Governors and legislators, judges in courts of record. State and Federal employes are exempt only if the President finds their work essential.

> Nobody can pay a forfeit to escape the draft, pay a substitute to serve for him, or buy his way out once he is in service. Nor can the U. S. offer special bounties to any conscript or volunteer. Reason: the Army's doleful experiences with bounties, substitutes, and attendant corruption in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

> After registration, but before actual induction into the service, conscripts remain subject to civil laws. After induction, they are of course subject to martial law. The Department of Justice will nab and prosecute men who evade registration or falsify statements at this stage (civil penalty: imprisonment up to five years, a fine up to $10,000, or both). But if they fail to report on the day and hour specified for induction, they will be classed as deserters, tried by court-martial.

> After a conscript or one-year volunteer has had his twelve months of training, his employer must give him back his old job "unless the employer's circumstances have so changed as to make it impossible or unreasonable to do so." Returning trainees who are not rehired can appeal to U. S. district courts, get the free services of Federal attorneys. Net effect of this provision: draftees will have to depend more on the prosperity, good will and patriotism of their employers than on the expressed (but weakly implemented) good will of the U. S. Government.

> Known members of 1) the Communist Party, 2) the Nazi Bund, cannot be hired to replace draftees in civil jobs. Aliens can be so hired. They are subject to the draft only if they have filed their first papers and made application for citizenship.

^ Congress declared in principle that draftees and one-year volunteers can vote in person or by absentee ballot. But the States determine who can vote; Congress actually has nothing to say about it. Twenty-nine States forbid soldiers on active duty to vote while 19 others* restrict but do not outlaw balloting by soldiers.

The System owes much of its precision and detail to onetime (World War I) Draft Administrator Hugh S. Johnson (who is not bashful about taking due credit in his daily column). Its present spark plug is tawny-haired, blue-eyed Lieut. Colonel Lewis Elaine Hershey. A descendant of antimilitarist Mennonites who migrated to Pennsylvania in 1709, Lieut. Colonel Hershey has specialized on Army conscription plans since 1926. His technical superior on the Joint Army and Navy Selective Service Committee is the Navy's Lieut. Commander Benjamin Stacey Killmaster. But the Navy has little need of conscripts, will leave the job of running the first peacetime U. S. draft largely to Lewis Hershey. By law, either a civilian or a military man may have the $10,000-a-year post of Draft Administrator. The Army hopes that President Roosevelt will appoint Lieut. Colonel Hershey, will not be surprised if a big-name civilian gets the honor and the salary.

Lewis Hershey likes to stress the fact that, during the whole process of drafting, prospective conscripts need have no contact whatsoever with the Army. Reason is that the Army made a thorough hash of the Civil War draft, proved in World War I that civilian operation was better. Key civilians in the next draft will be the members of 6,500-odd county boards, registrars at some 125,000 voting precincts, who will actually interview and select the draftees. The system is based on existing election machinery, in many instances will be manned by local election officials. For getting this machine into motion, the Army has a carefully timed schedule.

National Registration Day comes first (Oct. 16). On that day all male citizens between 21 and 36 must report in person to registrars at the local voting precincts, fill out simple information blanks (name, age, address, occupation, etc.).

Five days later, local boards will assign a serial number to each registrant (thousands will have the same number). Then follows lottery day, when a suitable dignitary (Franklin Roosevelt, for instance) will reach into the same glass bowl from which the first World War I number (258) was drawn in 1917, will pull out one of thousands of jumbled capsules. Each capsule will contain a numbered slip. Registrants holding the drawn numbers will be the first to receive detailed questionnaires, probing into every aspect of jobs, dependents, special qualifications, reasons (if any) for requesting exemption. Other lotteries will follow.

Questionnaires must be returned to the local boards within five days (they can be mailed in). The board members then study the data, subdivide the registrants into four classes: 1) eligible for immediate service; 2) deferred because they hold necessary civilian jobs, where they will be more useful than in the Army; 3) deferred because they have dependents;* 4) ineligible because of physical or mental incompetence.

If a registrant objects to his classification, he can appeal to regional boards (one for every 600,000 population). In theory, he can even appeal to the President. But the Army does not propose to let appeals and delays gum up the draft ("War is not going to wait while every slacker resorts to endless appeals. . . ."). In effect, the word of regional appeal boards will be final.

From the 16,500,000 registrants, the Army expects to get about 5,000,000 Class 1 prospects. But not all of these will go into the Army. Those finally selected must first pass a physical examination.

This should be neither bar nor safeguard to most young men: conscripts can be blind in one eye, partially deaf in both ears, minus one big toe or two little ones, and still be technically eligible.

Since the Army plans to take only 400,000 by January 1, another 800,000 next year, some will be overage before they are called; some may never be called anyway. Those who are 1) summoned for physical examination, and 2) pass, will be told when and where to report, will from that day & hour be in the Army for twelve months. They can state their preferences or special fitness for a given service, but must serve wherever they are put.

Is the Army Ready? "Time is fleeting," Chief of Staff George C. Marshall fretted two months ago, begging Congress to speed up conscription and the appropriation of money to pay and house his new soldiers. He and other officers then estimated that if Congress acted quickly, 400,000 draftees and 240,000 newly mobilized National Guardsmen could be adequately cared for this winter.

This week the first 60,000 National Guardsmen reported for duty, before workmen had finished knocking together wood-&-canvas shelters. Many were put up temporarily in their local armories. The Army last week planned to call up its first 75,000 conscripts November 15, to have "adequate" housing for them by then, shelter for the rest by year's end. President Roosevelt asked Congress for $1,600,000,000 for pay, tents, barracks, mobilization expenses. War Department officers uneasily declared that no Guardsmen, no draftees would be wet or cold this winter, frantically pressed ahead with temporary housing projects to make the promise good.

*Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia. *The mere fact of marriage does not guarantee exemption from the draft, although the first 400,000 will be mostly single.

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