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theoretically adequate to bring the war to a close in a reasonable period of time. Great Britain never put more than 16,500 troops into the field, against a total of 527,000 individuals employed at one time or another by the United States. The volunteer force Congress had authorized could not be recruited, despite the offer of liberal bounties, and the military turned to the Militia, with the result that the experiences of Revolution and Colonial days were repeated.

MEXICAN WAR. In the war with Mexico 40,000 troops, having completed their 1-year enlistment terms just as General Scott was on the march to Mexico City, about-faced and went home! Perforce, operations were suspended while General Scott awaited replacements.

CIVIL WAR. The story of the draft during the Civil War is also characterized by almost every conceivable kind of mistake, beginning with the control of the draft by the military and the provision which permitted the hiring of substitutes. This was true in the South as well as in the North. In the North, conscription was started in 1863, after it had become evident that the volunteer system would not suffice, but the methods employed aroused public resentment. Since the draft had not been introduced at the beginning of the war, it became a method of coercing those who had refused to volunteer. Voluntary recruiting continued after conscription was introduced, and the draft was applied only in areas that had failed to fill their quotas with volunteers. The inevitable result was that public odium quickly attached to the drafted individual. The draft machinery also was employed to apprehend spies and deserters. In the public eye, the manhunts for deserters and for registrants were similar enterprises.

Although the Federal Government held whip-hand control of the draft, it did not take the local governments into partnership either in action or in responsibility. The law fell most heavily on the poor and allowed the wealthy to escape because, after he was drafted, a man could hire a substitute or purchase outright exemption for $300. Wealthy districts filled their quotas

from the poor districts, offered lavish bounties for volunteers. Widespread corruption was encouraged by the very nature of the system; substitute brokers traded in the sale of substitutes; some professional substitutes, after getting their money, deserted and sold themselves in other districts, while bounty jumpers lived well by repeated enlistments and desertions. There were widespread riots. In New York City, draft rioters captured the city hall and invoked a reign of terror which lasted four days. Many historians estimate the death toll at more than 1,000.

The South had two advantages-it enacted draft legislation after only one year's experience with the volunteer system, and its volunteers signed for 12 months' service as against 3 and 9 months in the North. Nevertheless, the evils that developed were as great as in the North. A man with money, for example, could hire a substitute at wages agreed to between them. Since the wages of the substitute were often many times the pay received by the volunteers, naturally a deep bitterness grew up between these two classes of troops. The South also indulged in sweeping occupational exemptions-minor officials, newspapermen, lawyers, school teachers, druggists, and a host of others were singled out for special consideration.

Although mistakes were made by both sides in the Civil War, invaluable lessons were learned and recorded. In 1866 Brig. Gen. James Oakes, who, as Assistant Provost Marshal General for Illinois, administered the draft in that State, wrote an exhaustive report enumerating the mistakes and making definite recommendations for any future mobilization. The report lay unused for more than a half century, when it was brought to light by the Judge Advocate General of the Army, Enoch H. Crowder. Many of the ideas and principles embodied in the Oakes report were incorporated in the Selective Service Act of 1917 and later in the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, as amended. Among the most important of the principles were selective service from the beginning of the conflict; no bounties for volunteering; no hired substitutes or purchased exemption

that is, individual deferment for cause only; required cooperation of local governments; law enforcement left to the Justice Department; registration by voluntary act at designated places and conducted by civilians; draft boards of civilian neighbors; corruption made very difficult; and service for the duration.

WORLD WAR I. Supervised decentralization characterized the administration of the Selective Service Act of 1917, enacted 17 May, slightly less than six weeks after declaration of war with the Central Powers. District and local boards created by the act were linked to the State executives, while a small Federal directive agency, designated by the President through the Secretary of War, served as a central source of instruction and guidance to give uniformity, accuracy, and speed to the operation of the boards.

The following coordinated parts made up the selective-service machinery: the Provost Marshal General, the State governors and the draft executives, the district boards, the industrial advisors, the local boards, the Government appeal agents, the medical advisory boards, the legal advisory boards, and the boards of instructors. Personnel totaled 193,117 on 31 October 1918; of these, only 192 were commissioned officers. There were 4,650 local boards composed entirely of civilians; 160 district boards, also composed entirely of civilians, which handled appeals from local board decisions and exercised original jurisdiction over industrial and agricultural claims for exemption; and 52 State, Territorial, and district headquarters.

It was the duty of the local boards not only to classify registrants but to carry out the whole process of registration (except the first registration), classification, physical examination, induction, and entrainment. Unlike the procedure during World War II, the inductee left his local board as a member of the armed forces and subject to military law. For the most part, local board members served without compensation. Before the war was over, however, provision was made to pay them a nominal per diem about equal to prevailing jury duty fees; actually,

few local board members applied for remuneration.

The first registration, conducted with civil election machinery, was held on 5 June 1917; the nation registered 10,000,000 men in the precinct polling places. A year later the local boards registered another 900,000 men who had become of draft age, and on 13 September 1918 an additional 13,000,000 men were added to the rolls for a total registration in World War I of more than 24,000,000.

After the registration cards were shuffled, each was assigned a serial number, these numbers to determine the order numbers in the national lottery. The classification process was extremely simple at first. Calls had been levied for the first contingents of the National Army and there was no time to gather the full data on every registrant before pronouncing his liability. Registrants were called for physical examinations as determined by their order numbers, interviewed by the board, and marked either for drafting or for deferment. An army of nearly 700,000 men was thus raised, before time and experience permitted refinement of the procedure. Then came the questionnaire, which each registrant was required to fill out; based on these facts and with time for more deliberate action, the local boards set up five classes representing the various degrees of liability for service. Fortunately the war ended before it became necessary to reclassify out of the deferred classes. Local boards got nowhere near the bottom of the manpower pool.

After the war the Provost Marshal General reported, among other things, that "from the ordinary walks of civil life, 2,810,296 men were drawn and placed in the military service. But the deferred classes have remained intact. When hostilities closed, there remained in class I a supply of fighting men sufficient to meet every military necessity." Approximately 100,000 men, otherwise available for class I, found refuge in the blanket deferments provided for shipbuilding labor. This resulted in considerable indignation and gave added emphasis to a lesson which should have been learned from the

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a Month of first World War I inductions. b Includes 141,822 inducted under third registration e Includes 1,607 inducted under third registration.

BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS. Studying and planning for manpower procurement in the event of another emergency began in 1926, under authority of the National Defense Act as amended. The task was entrusted to a Joint Army and Navy Selective Service Committee, which drafted, and kept up to date by revisions, a proposed law ready for enactment at need. The Committee also trained the nucleus of a wartime organization, which was ready to operate on a nation-wide scale when the Selective Training and Service Act was adopted on 16 September 1940. That act, although a peacetime measure, was so drafted that it could be readily transformed to meet the emergency of war. Liability for training and service in the armed forces was placed upon both male citizens and those men who declared their intention of becoming citizens of the United States. Not more than 900,000 men were to be in training at one time, and inducted men were to serve and be trained for a period of 12 months or less, unless Congress declared the national interest imperiled. Inductees were not to be employed beyond the limits of the Western Hemisphere except in our territories and posessions. Deferments were based on individual status; group deferments were prohibited, as were also bounties for military service and the hiring of substitutes. The keynote of organization was decentralization, just as it had been in World War I.

WORLD WAR II. On 13 December 1941-6 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor Congress amended the act, removing the restriction that inducted men must be kept within the Western Hemisphere or our territories, and extending the period of military service for the duration of the war, plus 6 months.

A significant improvement in the World War II Selective Service Act was the provision to insure the discharged

veteran his right to reemployment in the job he had left to enter the Armed Forces, a principle overlooked in World War I. The law said that, under certain conditions and within reasonable construction, every man called to the service of his country and discharged from that service under honorable conditions was entitled to get his old job back without any loss of rights or benefits that would have accrued to him had he remained in such employment.

The original act provided for a Director of Selective Service to be appointed by the President; State directors, likewise appointed by the President upon recommendation of the governors of the States; local boards for each county or corresponding political subdivision, with additional boards for approximately each 30,000 of population; one or more reemployment committeemen for each local board, to help veterans to obtain their old jobs back as provided for in the act; a medical examiner for each board and a Government appeal agent, to protect the interests of both the registrant and the Government; and one or more boards of appeal for each State, the members of which were appointed by the President upon recommendation of the governors. Local board members were presidential appointees made upon recommendation of the governors.

As directed by the President, the first registration was held 16 October 1940. About 16,000,000 men, between the ages of 21 and 35 years, were registered. Inductions began the following month. Brig. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey was appointed Director of Selective Service on 31 July 1941. succeeding Clarence A. Dykstra.

Two tasks confronted the Director of Selective Service at the outbreak of World War II: First, to furnish the Armed Forces the men desired. by type and number; and second, to avoid stripping the farms, factories. mines, railroads, ships, etc., of men essential to supplying the implements of war to our Armed Forces and our Allies, to feeding and clothing them, and to caring for the people at home. Hence, in making their selections for military service the local selective-service boards were required to weigh the registrant's need

in his civilian occupation, dependency, and a host of others. The magnitude of this task is indicated by the fact that local boards were required to take more than a quarter of a billion classification actions.

Among the major problems of Selective Service during World War II were the age limits for induction, physical standards, occupational deferments, and the drafting of fathers. Although age was the basic factor in determining who should register, the selection of men for induction or deferment was, until 1944, dependent on marital status and occupation of those within the limits of the age group which was currently acceptable for induction. A registrant could appeal his classification (except physical) to the appeal board of jurisdiction, of which there was one (or more) in each State; and, under certain conditions, could carry his appeal from there to the President. The Director of Selective Service and the State directors could appeal either in behalf of the registrant or the Government.

Approximately 66 percent of those who served in the Armed Forces during World War II were registrants inducted through Selective Service. And among the remainder a large proportion were influenced to enlist or seek a commission because of their liability to be drafted.

As in World War I, the keynote of the World War II organization was decentralization. Early in 1947 the Selective Service System was composed of 54 State organizations, 6.442 local boards and 72 appeal boards, plus 331 appeal board panels. There were 182,509 persons connected with the System, of whom about 95 percent served without remuneration. Approximately 51 percent of the unpaid workers appointed in 1940 were still serving on 31 March 1947 when the act expired.

OFFICE OF SELECTIVE SERVICE RECORDS. In a special message to Congress on 3 March 1947, the President recommended that the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 be permitted to expire on 31 March 1947, the date specified in an amendment to the act.

Subsequently Congress enacted a measure establishing the Office of Selec

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tive Service Records, charged with the responsibility of liquidating the selective service system, maintaining, preserving, and servicing selective service records-containing data concerning approximately 50 million men-and preserving the knowledge and methods of selective service. The Director of Selective Service, Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, was appointed Director of the new agency. State Directors of the Office of Selective Service Records, appointed by the President upon recommendation of the respective governors, were made responsible for the preservation, maintenance, and servicing of the records in their States.

With the cooperation of the State adjutants general of the National Guard, the preservation of the knowledge and methods of Selective Service was accomplished by the Training Division, the function of which was to train members of selective service sections of State National Guard staffs, Reserve officers of the several components of the Armed Forces, and others who wished to participate in the principles and methods of use of manpower in national emergencies.

In accordance with the provisions of the new act, with the expiration of the Selective Training and Service Act, the administration of its provisions protecting the reemployment rights of veterans passed from the Veterans' Personnel Division of the Selective Service System to the Secretary of Labor. Approximately 6,500,000 World War II veterans applied to local selective service boards for information or assistance regarding reemployment rights. Satisfaction was obtained with a minimum of litigation.

SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT OF 1948. This act, approved 24 June 1948, marked the second time that the United States had resorted to compulsory military service in peacetime. But as on the first occasion (1940), war was soon to underscore the need for such legislation. The Act was designed "to provide for the common defense by increasing the strength of the armed forces of the United States, including the Reserve components, and for other pur

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White and Negro combined on report.

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