Show GENERAL HUGH S owr 0 washington D C DRAFT efficiency A quick glance at the selective service v ice administrations record to date ai indicates indicate it I 1 is going forward efficiently and well and with general popular approval when you stop to consider that what we are dealing with ith here is outright conscription supposed to be in direct conflict with our anglo american traditions of democracy and personal freedom this condition speaks volumes for the excellence with which the JOD job has been handled this is a cause of f understandable satisfaction to this writer because the whole system follows without many important changes the plans and policies worked out by trial and error during the world war the biggest single causes oi of dissatisfaction are army medical rejections after draft boards acceptance and the lack bof of uniformity among the thousands of local boards in taking or deferring married men in this respect t the he law I 1 leaves eaves mr dykstra with less discretion than we had the tact fact of actual dependency of wives and children r rather ather th than an the fact of marriage is made mad the deciding 3 circumstance the question of dependency is one of the relative degree to which a fa family mily is d dependent epen dent on its head the law p puts ats that up to the local boards and not to the director where the wife and husband both have jobs is she dependent where the wife and husband have ample income apart from his work is that it dependency where the husband is a no good bum who never took the trouble to support his family should he escape service ervice s on the ground that he is married if the answer to such questions is left entirely to the local boards IA Tiri fl rt hi a verv wide IA Tiri fl rt hi a verv there is bound to be a very difference in result this created the toughest problem in the world war draft also it makes more noise than the facts warrant then there were 48 million married registrants about or SO 90 per cent were deferred many of those not deferred had no claim filed for them either by themselves 0 or r their wives in hundreds h of cases a wife would drag some worthless loafer in and demand that he be ta taken ken in some of these cases the demand was recanted on the ground that the threat of service had made a perfect fact husband the net result of that experience was a gradual and continuous relaxation 0 of f the rule in favor of not breaking up families wherever it could be possibly and justly avoided LOOSE END ENDI BILL T two wo apparent absurdities attend the arguments for the loose end bin bill now being so hotly debated one is the insistence of certain sincere congressional advocates that the bill does not surrender ender to the executive the constitutional safeguards against dictatorship the famous congressional power of the purse in our own and english experience it i is s the strongest weapon of demo democracy democrat crac y our constitution gives congress alone the power to declare war and to raise and support armies to this latter highly important grant the constitution attaches a condition but no appropriation pria tion of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two 99 years under the loo loose se end bill the president is given authority to transfer to another nation any defense article he desires the words defense article are defined to mean any conceivable military or naval resource which the united states owns or may hereafter acquire when this is attacked as a surrender by congress to the executive of its power of the purse in war the answer is made that the bill appropriates no m money oney and hence that congress through its power to appropriate still controls action under the bill right night off the bat it is apparent that as to the many billions of dollars worth of military and naval equipment that this country now has the answer simply is not true the bill gives the president authority to transfer it with no further appropriation whatever neither is it necessarily true as to gifts of new equipment it is true under the bill that before he could for e example order a new battleship built expressly announced as a gift to china he would have to go to congress for authority but there is is a loop loophole hole that is as broad as a barn door in this crisis congress I 1 has refused no appropriation to build armament for the united states and it is as sure as sunrise tha it will refuse none in the future but ir il this bill is parsed not a nickel can be spent on armar armament rient by this government which would not automatically fall fail under the proposed grant of presidential power to transfer that armament to an another oilier country as soon as 1 it is finished or even before he have to go back to congress for appropriations before he can transfer american equipment and resources it is an even more complete surrender of the power of the purse in favor of other nations than would even be openly requested by a president in favor of the united states |