THE DRAFT: The Day

Last week, in the 14 hours between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. of Oct. 16, the U. S. put its man power and its democracy to a test. Both passed, with honors. Some 17,000,000 free men, aged 21 to 35, did what they had been told to do: register for the draft. They went to appointed places. They stood in line. They answered questions. They signed small, imperious cards. They buried a tradition: that the U. S., in peace, never requires its men to take up arms. Henceforth, whether or not they were destined for actual service, they had submitted themselves to a kind and degree of supervision which the U. S. citizenry had never known.

All this they did with precision, discipline, dignity, good humor. It was not a day for cynics, or for defeated democrats, or for journalists looking for jaundiced “color,” or for Hitler, or for those in the U. S. who had come to believe that only a Hitler could make such a day and such a turnout. It was a day for men who obeyed a law, yet knew well enough that in all the U. S. there were not enough soldiers, policemen, judges, prison wardens to compel their obedience; for the rich, the poor, the salaried, for men with names, creeds, skins, tongues from all the earth. On their day:

» “Don’t scribble!” a draft registrar in Chicago begged. “I can’t read your first name.”

“Can’t help it,” the registrant mumbled. “First name’s Ignatius. Never could spell it.”

» Yet Yow, a distinguished citizen of Manhattan’s Chinatown, made it his business to round up Chinese who could not speak English, see that they registered (5,000 did). Said Mr. Yow: “I tell them they will get a chance to fight Japan. They come with me, quick.”

» Said Ichiro Ito, a Japanese dental technician in Manhattan: “I am American. My friends are American. We like America.”

» The Irish Horse Traders live & trade throughout the southeastern U. S., but hundreds chose to register in Atlanta. Reason: their friend and adviser, Undertaker Ed H. Bond, does business there. The Traders, who used to be one clan of Irish immigrants, have long since intermarried, send their dead to Mr. Bond, have him keep the bodies until April 28 each year. Then they assemble for a mass burial. Last week, day before registration, Mr. Bond received and stored the body of an Irish Trader, “a young man named Carroll,” aged 21, from Lula, Ga.

» California Mexicans raised a row when they were first classed as “Indians,” got reclassified as “white.”

» Florida Seminoles had been advised by their tribal council to register. But most of 65 eligible Seminoles fled to the Everglades, refused to come out of their swamps. Most other Indians (including New York Senecas, who had objected at first) registered in due order. Said Davis Green, clerk of the Onondaga Tribe: “Well, we’ve fought to defend this land before.”

» Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis Barrow, registering his full name in Detroit, was asked what branch of the service he would like to join. “I ain’t choosy,” he said.

» In Trenton, N. ]., one John T. Cook came out of hiding, registered, then surrendered for trial on a murder charge. ^ At Burwell, Neb., Sheriff George Brock recognized a registrant in line, tried to serve a warrant for assault, was shot and killed.

» Registered were the five sons of John D. Rockefeller Jr. (John III, 34; Nelson, 32; Laurance, 30; Winthrop, 28; and David, 25). Said David, who was just back from his honeymoon: “I don’t think my wife is within the legal definition of a dependent.”

» An expatriate Hindu in Manhattan appeared with two names, insisted upon registering twice for the draft. “Thus it was done in Washington,” said Ali Aftab and or Mokram Ullam, exhibiting two Social Security cards, “thus it must be done here.” Thus it was done. But only one of his names was counted in New York City’s total (1,001,375).

» General John J. Pershing’s son Warren, 31, registered quietly in Manhattan. The General’s second cousin, George O. Pershing, also registered (in Westchester, N. Y.), announced that he will work for repeal of the draft act if he is elected to Congress (on the American Labor Party ticket).

» Hospital patients of draft age generally signed up in bed. One was 24-year-old Vincent Catroppa, in Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Hospital. He was glad to tell about his operation: to correct flat feet, so that he could join the Army.

» Southern Negroes perturbed their white folks in only one respect: on Registration Day, they acted very much like the white folks. If anything, blacks outdid whites at clamoring to get into the Army.

» At Nahant, Mass., five schoolteachers drew lots for the honor of registering John Roosevelt, 24. Said he: “If I am drafted, I will be very glad to serve” (he has a wife and son, hence will probably not be called up this year). Franklin Jr. registered in Indianapolis. James, 31, was already a Marine Corps Reserve captain, did not have to register. Elliott, 30, was a volunteer captain in the Specialist Reserve.

» There were puns. A fire started during registration in a Waltham, Mass, school; inevitably, it was “fanned by the draft.” From coast to coast, thwarted humorists announced that their next babies would be named “Weatherstrip” (“to keep me out of the draft”).

» Some hearts were troubled. Eight theological students refused to register in Manhattan. They were exceptions; most of the few thousand ministers, students, men of simple peace who had reservations were allowed to write “conscientious objector” on their cards, reserve their protests until they are actually called (when they will be exempted from combat duty, will still be liable to other “national service”). In the U. S. on Oct. 16, no man was jailed for refusing to register; none made any overt attempt to keep others from registering. Another notable fact: among Pennsylvania’s peaceful, bearded Amishmen (“The Plain People”) not one raised his voice in audible objection, conscientious or otherwise.