Power Over Men

To a pleased Paul McNutt, his new authority as Manpower Commissioner looked great & good. In the past he had been expected, with nothing but advisory powers, to do as tough an administrative job as the war has yet produced. Now Franklin Roosevelt, by executive order, had given him something to work with.

>Under his control goes the entire Selective Service System. For the first time, McNutt can now tell the 6,400 local U.S. draft boards which men they can have and which they must leave in jobs.

>Before the Army & Navy set their draft quotas, they must confer with McNutt, who can carry his case to the President if he thinks the armed forces are raiding the civilian population too heavily. Heretofore, Army & Navy have taken men without regard to other manpower needs.

>To stop another leak in the manpower pool, men between 18 and 38 will no longer be permitted to enlist, in either Army or Navy. And the draft will no longer take men over 38, who are almost invariably more useful in industry.

>McNutt can now decree, in any plant, city or area, that employers must hire men only through the U.S. Employment Service. He can thus stop labor pirating.

>He can order an employer to give up a worker who is more needed elsewhere, though he cannot force the worker to move--thus discourage labor hoarding.

Paul McNutt well knew that he had remained Manpower Commissioner only because Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes did not want the job. But if he resented being second choice, he did not show it. It was more likely that ambitious Paul McNutt, who has been no ball-of-fire at the job to date, welcomed any fair chance --as first, second or tenth choice--to redeem himself.

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