THE DRAFT: First Conscript

Last week a civilian was chosen to direct the U. S. draft: big (6 ft. 3 in., nearly 200 lb.), incisive Clarence Addison Dykstra, president of the University of Wisconsin. Denied top place in the new Selective Service Administration was the Army’s able Lieut. Colonel Lewis Blaine Hershey, who prepared the draft machinery and stood by to teach Director Dykstra its ins & outs.

This addition of one more Big Name to President Roosevelt’s imposing defense corps did not surprise Army men. They knew furthermore that, if the President had elected to put an officer in charge, he would have had to make the difficult choice between Lieut. Colonel Hershey and Judge Advocate General Allen W. Gullion, who topped Lewis Hershey in rank if not in knowledge of the draft. Military men also understood that a civilian director was in keeping with U. S. tradition and with a basic conscription principle: to keep the Army as far as possible from civilian draftees until they are actually inducted into service.

Clarence Dykstra was generally considered a good choice. A political scientist who actually gives some meaning to that vague term, he earned his greatest distinction as an administrator. As city manager he cleaned up Cincinnati, got national fame with his cool, able handling of a crisis when the Ohio River flooded part of the city in 1937. He took over the troubled University of Wisconsin after the late Dr. Glenn Frank was ousted, did a good job there as well. That change cost him a $10,000 salary cut (from $25,000 to $15,000). His new job will entail another cut (to $10,000). But he did not resign from the university; after he had talked to Franklin Roosevelt last week, the university’s board of regents gave Dr. Dykstra an indefinite leave of absence.

President Roosevelt had not helped matters by his delay in choosing a director. When the Senate took up Dr. Dykstra’s appointment for confirmation this week, Registration Day for 16,500,000 eligible men (21 to 35 inclusive) was only two days off. Lewis Hershey, who set up the registration system, had meantime been handicapped in adopting final policies for fear they might not suit the new director.

One question this week was how much actual drafting Clarence Dykstra would have to direct in 1940. The conscription act forbids the Army to enroll draftees until adequate housing is ready for them. Housing was still a problem last week: so was equipment. The Army talked of taking in only 100,000 draftees and volunteer registrants this year, of putting off the rest of the 400,000 in the first draft until early 1941. As the Army had expected, the rate of volunteering has increased since the conscription act was passed. Registered men can volunteer for one year’s service if they do not want to be drafted.

Meanwhile, last week:

>Twenty students at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City announced that they would refuse to register (the law requires theological students to register, exempts them from service). Tough, testy Colonel Arthur V. McDermott, the local draft director, promptly threatened to jail the lot.

> Mohawk and Seneca Indians in New York bucked up, declared that they would refuse to register (but would volunteer for actual war). Three Mohawk chiefs disclaimed U. S. citizenship for their tribesmen, said they would never submit to “force and coercion.”

> President Roosevelt’s and the War Department’s announcement of a revised military policy for Negroes raised a howl from Negro leaders. Only new phases of the “new” policy were promises to admit Negroes to the all-white air service (when & if there are enough trained Negro pilots, navigators, mechanics, etc. to staff Negro units), let qualified Negroes take 90-day officers’ courses which will be opened for adept draftees. Main points of the present Army policy toward Negroes were unchanged: 1) segregation of black and white soldiers in separate units; 2) white officers in charge of Negro outfits in the Regular Army (two Negro regiments in the National Guard will keep their Negro officers). The White House announcement said that this policy had been adopted after consulting “leaders of Negro life.” Said Walter White, secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: “We most vigorously protest. . . . We are inexpressibly shocked. . . .”