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Show HCONOMIC ! HIGHLIGHTS j National and International Problems Inseparable From Laeal Welfare --9 Last January, an official announcement an-nouncement said that the United States Army would reach a total of 3 600.000 men by the end of 1942 ' Since then, the actual size of the Army and precise plans for Its expansion have not been announced an-nounced inasmuch as they are Sat' secret, of the Hrst order. Some commentators have fore cast that in time the . Army jueh total nine or ten million. The .best available Information seems to in dicate that a total of at least 6, 000 000 will be attained. That is obviously going to have a revolutionary effect on the man-tower man-tower of this country. However. Ke is no ' factual evidence to support the scare rumors which ay "-t every physically W man under 36 is certain to be placed m uniform. Selective Service heads are making a genuine effort to create an Army of the size needed need-ed with minimum dislocation of . ,.ior, family life. I vised the Boards to exempt enough ' farm labor to keep food production j up to the necessary level. But, re- . i ports say, in .some areas the draft j : is virtually denuding the farms of i labor. Furthermore, farmers can-I can-I not pay the high wa ges paid by j war industry, and workers are na-' na-' turally taking jobs in war factories factor-ies instead of on farms. This seems to be one of the most serious of the unsolved problems. It is probable that the immed- j iate course of the war will have a direct bearing on Army expansion plans here. If, for instance, Russia continues to hold the Germans, and Japan is stopped in the Pacific, Pa-cific, a U. S. Army of the largest size possible will not be necessary. If, on the other hand, Germany manages to crack the Russian defense de-fense this summer, and If Japan j continues to win victories, you can look with assurance to Army ex-! ex-! pansiou on a tremendously accel-I accel-I era ted scale. I It is reported that men between i 25 and 44, which was the second group registered, will, as a general rule, be taken only for behind-the-lines Army service. It is expected that the greater proportion of this group will go to work in war industry. in-dustry. No plans have been made for the 45-65 group of registrants. Here is how matters shape up at this time, according to published "practically all available single men in the 20-35-year brack-. IT have been called. Many who tre given temporary deferment for occupational reasons are now being summoned. In time, women and older men will replace thousands thous-ands of young men in defense in-dustries. in-dustries. ' Second, the Selective Service Boards are placing, in the I-A classification all men who have no genuine claim for dependency. That includes men with working wives, men who contribute little to the support of their household and men with- means. Almost all of these men will be in uniform hy the end of the year, unless they are unable to pass the physical examinations ex-aminations or perform vital work in war industry. Third, it is universally believed that Congress will soon approve a bill providing government grants to dependents of service men. These grants, as now projected, are small-around $50 a month for a wife and child. But they will make it possible for the Selective Service Boards to call thousands of men who are now deferred for economic reasons. Fourth, a new draft classification 3-B has been adopted. And that is a matter of very great importance. impor-tance. At the present time, men with genuine dependencies are classified clas-sified as 3-A. The 3-B classification classifica-tion is for men with genuine dependencies de-pendencies who in addition, are i war work. The ' hope- vminyj is that thousands of men who now have non-war jobs will shift to war jobs, in order to obtain the 3-B deferment. Some observers say that eventually the Selective Service Ser-vice Boards will operate on the -work or fight" policy which existed exist-ed in World War I. In other words, a man will be given the choice of going into the Army or leaving a non-war occupation for a war occupation. oc-cupation. The industries which are classified clas-sified as essential to the war effort are definitely limited in number. Lawyers, store clerks, newspapermen newspaper-men wholesalers, advertising men,, etc have no claim for deferment, j Deferment is given only to men who hold a job which is directly j and absolutely necessary to the , production and transportation of the raw and finished materials which are involved in war. What this all adds up to is plain. If you are a single man, under 36. in reasonable health, you will go into the Army unless you are virtually vir-tually irreplaceable in some war industry. If you have dependents who look to you entirely for support, sup-port, you will be deferred for the time' being but there is a strong likelihood that in time the continuance con-tinuance of your deferment will depend upon your obtaining a job in war industry. If you have minor physical defects, you are not exempt ex-empt from military service. The original physical standards nave been relaxed, and men with defective de-fective eyesight, hearing, feet, etc., are being called to the colors and assigned to non-combatant duty. Man- problems remain to be worked out. An army of 6,000,000 men would mean that four to six times that number would be needed need-ed in industries manufacturing and transporting supplies. On top of thai .agriculture must be kept going, and on an expanding scale, inasmuch as we are sending tremendous tre-mendous quantities of foodstuffs to our Allies. Selective Service heads, such as General Hershey, have ad- |