''Permanent--for Today"

The U.S. has only about 8% of its people in uniform, but it still hopes it can finish the war without seriously discommoding the remainder of its civilian population. This was the apparent meaning of a delicate revision of the rules which Selective Service sent last week to local draft boards.

This newest fiat from Washington did bring some light into the darkness of the confused manpower situation. It:

P:Made no change in the status of 18-through-25-year-olds except to emphasize that occupational deferments for them will be few & far between.

P:Made "more or less permanent" for the 26-through-29-year-olds the orders issued a month ago. Men in this group who are necessary to and regularly engaged in essential jobs may be excused from the draft.

P:Affected chiefly and most happily the 30-and-over by ruling that they no longer need to show they are necessary to their employer, only need to show that they are employed in an essential occupation.

All This and Sodas Too. What is an essential occupation? Its definition will be left largely to local boards, who can make their decisions on the basis of neighborhood needs. For their guidance, Selective Service called essential:

Production of food, clothing, fuel, raw materials and chemicals; manufacture of machines, weapons, ships, planes, parts (including packing boxes and paper); services such as running communications and transportation, keeping the people informed by newspapers, magazines, radio and cinema, heating and lighting homes, caring for the people's health and safety. Draft Boss Major General Lewis Hershey admitted that a 26-year-old soda jerker could be given a deferment if he was the only one in the community.

Hershey's and Franklin Roosevelt's theory of Selective Service is still that it should force all men between the ages of 18 and 38 either into military service or into some occupation useful to the war. But the latest interpretation showed that Washington thought that at last it had the manpower problem under control. Officials said that only 150,000 to 200,000 men over 25 would have to be drafted during the rest of the year. There were other signs that Washington, after two and a half years of war, considered that the U.S. was at last adequately mobilized. The Navy announced that on Nov. 1 it would make a sharp 25% cut in its V12 program.

Hershey voiced one warning: the unpredictable fortunes of war in the next few months might change everything. As usual, Selective Service's latest order was only "permanent--for today."

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