Word: draft
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...radio speech urging 1) aid to Britain (with the Army and Navy to be the best judges of "how much and what sort of aid we can extend with safety"), 2) the election of Wendell Willkie. Because his 35th birthday comes next month he would register for the draft, as would Governor Stassen (33) and Lieutenant Governor C. Elmer Anderson (28), then leave for Washington to take the oath and begin work as the Senate's youngest Senator...
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...
...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...
...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...
...registrants will probably be mild at first. Those who forgot or for any other reason were unable to register will have to do so. Those refusing to register as conscientious objectors will be forced to in court and probably will lose any right to plead for deferment. Draft dodgers who attempt to conceal themselves will face the F.B.I. and be liable to a $10,000 fine or five years in prison...