750,000 Ayes

General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, last week reduced the argument over draft extension to its simplest terms. Said he (to a Senate Committee): "Is there an emergency? I say there is, and the War Department says there is. You gentlemen will have to settle it."

To some 750,000 young U.S. citizens, the question was absurd. These recently turned 21-year-olds had registered for the draft July 1, had their numbers drawn last week in Washington. Government bigwigs, 50 draftee and volunteer noncoms, World War I veterans, reached successively into the same glass jar used for the World War I draft and the first draft of War II, extracted 800 opaque, fireproof capsules. Inside each was a slip with a number corresponding to the order in which the 21-year-olds had registered (thousands in different draft districts had the same numbers). First number drawn: 196.

The order of the numbers drawn determined the order in which the new registrants will be listed by local draft boards. Where the ratio of old to new registrants on a board's list is five-to-one, five older prospects will be called up for classification ahead of a 21-year-old, etc. But the local boards do not have to induct all whom they call up. They may--and are likely to--defer more of the older registrants, for the Army wants youngsters, and hopes that most of its new draftees will be from the class of 21.

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