National Service

M-day for all American manpower was fast approaching this week. On Washington's Capitol Hill two Republicans--Vermont's Senator Warren Austin, New York's Representative James Wadsworth --dropped identical bills into the legislative hoppers. The small black type of the preambles read quietly: ". . . to provide further for the comprehensive, orderly and effective mobilization of the man power and the woman power in support of the war effort."

Points of the Wadsworth-Austin bill:

> Registration of the 32,000,000 women from 18 to 50 with local Selective Service boards.

> Authorization for the drafting of these women, plus the 43,000,000 men already registered, for factory and farm work.

> Before labor could be drafted for a particular job, the President must call for volunteers. Only after voluntary methods had failed could he order compulsory action.

> Among other exemptions, mothers with children under 18 could not be drafted.

> Drafted labor would enjoy prevailing rates of pay and working hours. Seniority rights in old jobs would be protected.

Work or Fight. This year the nation will need to distribute its manpower into 65,000,000 jobs,000,000 with the armed services, 20,000,000 in war production, 12,000,000 on the farms, 22,000,000 for irreducible civilian work. The 4-way strains of these huge forces have been wrenching the U.S. economy apart. Clear purpose of the Wadsworth-Austin measure was to challenge an Administration which has been studying the problem, but shying away from a tangle with Congress.

Yet even before this latest drastic proposal WMC Director Paul McNutt had been pushing a vast program of recruitment and training. Last week from his office came two orders: 1) All men between 18 and 38 and classified as 3-A, if they were engaged in certain nonessential occupations, must shift to essential war work or be drafted; 2) WMC, largely through the United States Employment Service, will take control of important hiring in areas of critical labor shortage.

It looked as if the Administration favored National Service, had a plan blueprinted, but was still fearful of Congress' reactions. If so, Republicans Austin & Wadsworth may have saved it the trouble. Said Senator Austin: "The new bill will establish equal treatment for all . . . government by consent of the governed."

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