Draft Passed

While everybody in Washington wanted to talk about MacArthur, Georgia's cagey and crusty Carl Vinson, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, set out to pilot the controversial draft bill through the House. As usual, his performance was a lesson in skilled parliamentary maneuver. He knew that he couldn't get everything he wanted (like Universal Military Training), but he was determined to get as much as possible, and did.

Patient and aggressive by turns, Carl Vinson gave ground where it hurt the least, bulled through the vital points, knocked down a host of emasculating amendments. A Republican attempt to put a 4,000,000-man limit on the armed forces was rejected; so was a move to require specific congressional approval before dispatching drafted troops to Europe.

These amendments were allowed: aliens living in the U.S. will be draftable, same as citizens (138 to 123); draftees may write bellyaching letters direct to their Congressmen (voice vote) ; draft-age volunteers for the Army may sign up for only a 26-month volunteer hitch (voice vote); 19-year-olds must be called to the colors before 18 1/2-year-olds (158 to 82); inactive and volunteer reservists called up to active service may take their cases to civilian appeal boards (voice vote).

The stickiest issue of all was an amendment to give draftees the choice of service in a segregated unit. Here Southerner Vinson, an outspoken opponent of the proposal, got impassioned support from Chicago's Democratic William Dawson, one of the two Negroes in the House, whose face bears scars from combat in World War I. "How long, how long, my confreres and gentlemen from the South," Dawson cried, "will you divide us Americans on account of color . . . Deny to me, if you will, all that American citizenship stands for. I will still fight for you. Why will this body go on record to brand this section of citizens second class?" He sat down to thundering applause from both sides of the House, including some from Southern Democrats. When it came to a final vote, the segregation move was defeated, 138 to 123.

Then, after two weeks' discussion, the entire bill passed by a vote of 372 to 44. It was a compromise, but it did go part way toward cleaning up the ramshackle collection of halfway compromises in the draft. Under the House bill:

P: The draft is extended for three years;

P: The draft age is lowered to 18 1/2;

P: Length of service is 26 months (in the Senate's version, it is 24 months);

P: Men between the ages of 25 and 35, now automatically deferred, will be subject to call; so will draft-age married men without children;

P: Draftees, after their 26 months, will be on inactive duty for the rest of a six-year period before final discharge;

P: All troops will get at least four months' basic training before being sent overseas, six months' training before going into combat;

P: Promising students will get a chance to finish up their college education, but the final decision in each case is up to the individual draft board.

Next step: resolving the differences with the Senate's version, already passed.

Last week the Senate passed by default (41 votes against; eight short of the necessary constitutional majority) President Truman's plan to reorganize the Reconstruction Finance Corp. Under the plan, now effective, the RFC will have a single administrator to be appointed by the President, and a special five-man investigating board to review all loans over $100,000. Probable one-man boss: NSRB Chairman Stuart Symington, one of the few. Truman favorites still personally popular in Congress.

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