ments, (2) to assist in maintaining the required strength of the Reserve forces by deferring inductions of members who serve satisfactorily, and (3) by classifications deferring induction, to channel men possessing critical skills or the requisite ability to acquire them into essential activities and occupations including engineering, scientific and technical pursuits and teaching, and the study and preparation for such fields; and Whereas the Selective Service System maintains through registration an inventory of all men of military age including the only inventory of veterans no longer in the Armed Forces who in an emergency might be needed quickly for augmentation of those forces, and keeps current the availability for order to active duty in time of emergency of over a million members of the Standby Reserve; and Whereas Selective Service has become an integral part of the Nation's defense and the Selective Service System, by its decentralized system of operation through over 4,000 local and appeal boards in every community made up of local citizens, has earned and enjoys the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the American people; and Whereas the local boards of the Selective Service System in every community of this Nation would render invaluable service in the event of an all-out emergency because of their ability to furnish manpower at local levels to any agency authorized to requisition men for specific duties, and Whereas some 40,000 of the 46,000 full and part-time officers and employees of the Selective Service System have volunteered their services to the Government and receive no compensation; and Whereas the cost of operating the Selective Service System is only about 16 cents per year for every man, woman and child in this Nation: Therefore be it Resolved by the Military Order of the World Wars in convention assembled in San Juan, P.R. this 24th day of October 1958, That section 17(c) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act (62 Stat. 625), as amended, be further amended so that all the authority to induct persons into the Armed Forces now provided by that Act will be extended until July 1, 1963, and that the Military Order of the World Wars use all of its efforts and influence to this end. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Military Order of the World Wars to be affixed this 24th day of October 1958. ROBERT G. KALES, Commander, USNR (Retired), Commander in Chief. By the Commander in Chief. HARRY F. MCCULLAH, Commander, USN (Retired), Secretary General. Re H.R. 2260 VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES, Hon. CARL VINSON, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR Mr. VINSON: This is to express the interest and approval of the National Organization of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States with respect to your bill, H.R. 2260, which would extend the Military Draft Act until June 1963, and for other purposes. Resolution No. 121, adopted by the 59th annual national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August 1958, strongly recommends extension of the Universal Military Training and Service Act to July 1, 1963, and is the basis for our support of your bill H.R. 2260. We believe that under existing world tensions it is necessary to provide the Department of Defense with the necessary machinery to keep our Armed Forces up to an agreed strength by use of the draft if volunteer enlistments are insufficient. We hope the House Armed Services Committee will promptly report H.R. 2260 and that it will be approved by the House of Representatives and the United States Senate and signed by the President. Respectfully yours, OMAR B, KETCHUM, Director. Representative CARL VINSON, NATIONAL COUNCIL AGAINST CONSCRIPTION, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR Mr. VINSON: I would appreciate it if you would insert in the record of the hearings and thus make available to members of the Armed Services Committee and Congress the enclosed statement on behalf of the National Council Against Conscription. The National Council Against. Conscription was organized in 1945 by leaders in farm, church, labor, and educational groups to oppose attempts to extend peacetime military conscription in the United States. Dr. Alonzo F. Myers, the chairman of the Department of Higher Education of New York University, is the chairman of our council and I have been serving as the director of the council. Sincerely yours, JOHN M. SwOMLEY, Jr. STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL AGAINST CONSCRIPTION We are concerned about the long-continued conscription in the United States. When the Selective Service Act of 1948 was adopted it was not intended to be a permanent law. Yet it has been steadily renewed for years at a time, without any effort on the part of the Armed Services Committee to explore suitable alternatives. In Great Britain, for example, a Government commission has been given the task of finding ways to establish a completely voluntary establishment. In the United States no responsible Government agency has gone beyond the report of the Cordiner committee to plan for adequate voluntary inducements. We urge the Armed Services Committee to think in terms of such a study. Certainly there have been enough changes in military technology and the world scene to require such a study rather than to continue automatically to maintain a system which Great Britain, for example, is abandoning. During the 11 years since the postwar conscription law was adopted in 1948, the world has witnessed the development of thermonuclear bombs, the trend toward making atomic weapons conventional, the development of long-range guided missiles and now is contemplating the devastating implications of the space age. During these 11 years Congress has accepted essentially the conscription program advocated by the Army in 1917. In spite of its deteriorating effects on civil and military life and in spite of the revolution in military technology it has been renewed almost automatically without any serious consideration of alternatives. In considering whether to continue the present power to induct we urge com. mittee consideration of the following five points: (1) The present law is discriminatory and inequitable.-There is economic discrimination because those whose parents can afford higher education are deferred while those who must work to earn the money for an education are drafted. Those who can afford to marry and have children young are deferred while those who cannot are further penalized by having to wait additional years after leaving the Armed Forces where they have received the extremely low pay of less than $100 a month. Thus a small segment of American society, for the most part already economically underprivileged, are set back a number of years in terms of economic competition with their fellow citizens of the same age, are deprived in some cases of further education and at the same time must undergo separation from home and family at the cost of their normal personal liberty. Prof. John K. Galbraith, of Harvard, has asserted that "the draft survives principally as a device by which we use compulsion to get young men to serve at less than the market rate of pay. We shift the cost of military service from the well-to-do taxpayer, who benefits by lower taxes, to the impecunious young draftee." (2) Conscription is not only inefficient; it cannot accomplish the end for which it was adopted.-The purpose for which it was adopted was to supply the Armed Forces with manpower that could be trained to meet the needs of those forces. The Defense Advisory Committee on Professional and Technical Compensation headed by Ralph J. Cordiner, president of General Electric, in its May 1957 report stated: "The modern military manpower problem, reduced to its simplest terms, is one of quality rather than quantity. It is not merely a matter of the total number of people on hand, but is much more a matter of the level of competence, skill, and experience of those people. "The military services are not able, at the present time and under the present circumstances, to keep and challenge and develop the kinds of people needed for the period of time necessary for those people to make an effective contribution to the operation of the force." The Cordiner report goes on to point out that of the 2,500,000 planned enlisted strength 305,000 have been inducted by the draft and "another 1,200,000 men are serving their first terms of voluntary enlistment." Of this overall first term group, 76 percent leave the Armed Forces as soon as their initial service period is over. Moreover, 97 out of every 100 draftees leave the Army as soon as their 2-year term ends. Since, as Ralph Cordiner has pointed out, the advance in "modern war technology makes it almost impossible to train a specialist in 2 years,” the men are being discharged about the time they are becoming trained and hence useful. This points up two further problems: 1. Cordiner said after talking to hundreds of enlisted men : "I found antagonism and bitterness over the draft. They were checking off the days until they got out. We must devote 25 percent of our military effort to training men who don't stay. The trainers are discouraged. They resemble the poor teacher whose every class flunks." 2. The accident rate is so high as a result of inexperienced men manning intricate weapons or equipment that the Armed Forces estimate that close to $5 billion worth of equipment is not now operable. The Cordiner report estimated on the basis of figures submitted by the Armed Forces that an armed force paid as adequately as other Government and civilian workers would result in sufficient voluntary reenlistments so as to permit a reduction in the size of the Armed Forces especially in training and transportation personnel, but also "a 10-percent cutback in maintenance technicians" and reductions at other points. The total saving in material and maintenance would go from about $51⁄2 billion in 1960 to about $61⁄2 billion in 1962. (3) Conscription has become an escape from responsibility for both Congress and the Armed Forces.-Instead of adopting policies which would attract young men into the Armed Forces compulsion has become an easy answer. Prior to June 1950, "approximately 60 percent of the enlisted members of the Armed Forces were reenlisting," said the Cordiner report. "The force consisted of approximately 1,500,000 men-predominantly volunteers." By 1954 the reenlistment rate had fallen to 18 percent. Aside from the pay scale there are other problems Congress has been able to dodge because of conscription. The Cordiner report spoke of "deplorable conditions under which military people are forced to live ** The report added: "In and around almost every military base can be found sprawling trailer camps and families jammed into 'splinter cities,' which are 5-year mobilization barracks stretched years beyond their original life expectancy. Divided families with inevitable inroads into the very heart of the moral fiber of the people involved; injury to the pride, dignity, and personal standards of the individualthese are the elements of this tragedy." But this is only part of the problem. The psychological attitude that the draft will provide men in spite of poor leadership, exploitation, and abuses is an aspect of compulsion itself. Dr. Eli Ginzberg, director of staff studies for the National Manpower Council, has said: "The trouble with the system is that there is a tendency for the defense management to seek the remedy for its errors by the simple method of calling up more manpower. The committees in Congress which deal directly with the armed services have become so responsive to the professional officer group that in the 1958 legislation providing for an increase in pay for the Armed Forces, a general or admiral received an increase of $424 a month over his previous pay, a colonel $148 a month, and a major $58 a month. A private, first class, earning less than $100 a month previously, during his first 2 years of service would get only $3 a month increase-hardly an inducement to volunteer. Congress and the Pentagon have thus far pursued a policy of granting large increases to officers who aren't drafted and keeping the pay of the enlisted men so low as to make it necessary to draft them. (4) Conscription has caused problems in leadership, discipline, and morale.— Many college students enter ROTC in order to escape being enlisted men. One Pentagon official quoted in the May 27, 1958, Look estimated that 80 percent of our officers below the rank of general are draft motivated. He pointed out that this attitude had also invaded the Military and Naval Academies. He then asked, "What kind of leaders will we have when hundreds of boys at the Academies are there, not because they want to be officers but because they don't want to be enlisted men?" This officer attitude communicates itself to the men. But there is also resentment on the part of the enlisted men who volunteer in order to avoid being drafted. The Secretary of the Navy in May 1958, stated “over a long period the increasing disciplinary problems in the Naval Establishment, especially a.w.o.l. rates and the brig population, have been a matter of grave concern to me. The a.w.o.l. rate rose 30 percent in 1957 over 1956 and courts-martial continue at the rate of 1,000 a week. The human and financial losses *** cannot be afforded." (5) The alternative to conscription is a voluntary Military Establishment.— In Great Britain a Government committee has been appointed "to examine the factors bearing on the willingness of men and women to serve in the Armed Forces and to make recommendations." The U.S. Government, on the other hand, has been so ordered toward compulsion that there have been since 1945 a number of Presidential or congressional commissions to consider the value of universal military training and none to promote a voluntary estiblishment. The British committee has already suggested better housing, married quarters, a shorter working day with more intensive employment, the ending of mounting formal guard on camp gates, kit inspections, and pay parades. It has deplored some indications of the caste idea which the Manchester Guardian describes as "expressions of a basic attitude, carried over from an age in which the officer was a country gentleman, intent on cultivating certain social virtues in himself and his fellow officers. That attitude will change as the officers structure of the army is changed, and as technical efficiency comes to be regarded as the prime requirement. The most valuable recruits for the Armed Forces will be men and women who would do well in comparable employment in civilian life and who will therefore expect comparable standards of efficiency and treatment." (Manchester Guardian Weekly, Nov. 6, 1958.) In the United States three important suggestions have been made that would result in an adequate volunteer establishment. The first is the proposal that a living wage, on a par with that of other Government workers, be paid to first-term enlisted men and that adequate increases be provided to solve the reenlistment problem. The second is that Congress provide for decent housing and other decent community standards in places where military personnel must live. The third is to change the Army idea that every cook, bookkeeper, and warehouse employee must be physically qualified for and given combat training. No more than 20 percent of an army are combat troops. The rest are supply or support personnel. Representative Thomas B. Curtis, in a speech before the Seabee Veterans Convention in St. Louis in 1954, said: "When we examine * * *the work performed by men in uniform for the Military Establishment, we will find that at least 80 percent (and some even estimate higher) is not fighting nor will it ever be fighting. It has to do with supplies, transportation, warehousing, maintenance, overhaul, bookkeeping, housing, feeding, overhead. Nor am I referring to the borderline cases, such as field or frontline maintenance, or frontline feedings, etc. Obviously, any work on the front lines will involve the need for military discipline. "Now if 80 percent of the men in uniform are never going to be engaged in fighting what in Heaven's name are we talking about training 100 percent to fight. If indeed an analysis of the job requirements of these 80 percent reveals, as it does, that the skills required are essentially civilian skills as were the skills needed in the Seabees, then we had best follow the Seabees formula in our personnel practices as it relates to the 80 percent." The Seabee formula was to take men of all ages and physical conditions from civilian life and use their civilian skills without putting them through basic military training or into uniform or under the miltary code. Representatve Curtis added: "The men in the Seabees were put into jobs they already knew. The guiding light of the personnel system was to utilize civilian skills. The military knows full well that they need civilian skills. What they have not yet learned is that the civilian enterprise is better equipped to train men in these skills than the military and incidentally at one-tenth the cost, because we don't have to provide room, board, and wages for our civilian trainees." Respectfully submitted. JOHN M. SWOMLEY, Jr. JEWISH WAR VETERANS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Hon. CARL VINSON, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Enclosed is a copy of the resolution passed at our 63d annual national convention held in Los Angeles, Calif., August 3-10, 1958, dealing with the extension of the Selective Service System. Since it is not possible for me to appear before your committee in person, a privilege and honor, I shall appreciate your inclusion of this resolution in the record of your hearings as an expression of our stand on the legislation which you are considering. With all good wishes. BERNARD WEITZER, National Legislative Director. SELECTIVE SERVICE Whereas the existence of full induction authority under the Universal Military Training Service Act enables the Selective Service System (1) to insure that the required strength of the Active Armed Forces be maintained both directly by inductions and indirectly by stimulating enlistments, (2) to assist in maintaining the required strength of the Reserve forces by deferring inductions of members who serve satisfactorily, (3) by classifications deferring induction, to channel men possessing critical skills or the requisite ability to acquire them into essential activities and occupations including engineering, scientific, and technical pursuits and teaching, and the study and preparation for such fields, (4) the Selective Service System, based on the accepted principle of the universal obligation and privilege of all citizens to defend this Nation, has fairly and effectively chosen the men to meet this universal obligation and privilege; and Whereas the Selective Service System maintains through registration an inventory of all men of military age including the only inventory of veterans no longer in the Armed Forces who in an emergency might be needed quickly for augmen tation of those forces, and keeps current the availability for order to active duty in time of emergency of over a million members of the Standby Reserve; and Whereas Selective Service has become an integral part of the Nation's defense and the Selective Service System, by its decentralized system of operation through over 4,000 local and appeal boards in every community made up of local citizens, has earned and enjoys the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the American people; and Whereas section 17(c) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act (62 Stat. 625), as amended, provides that no person shall be inducted into the Armed Forces under that act after July 1, 1959, with the exception of persons whose deferments under section 6 of such act have ceased to exist; and Whereas the impending termination of induction authority under the aforesaid act will leave our Nation without an effective obligation for every young man to serve his country in a military capacity; and Whereas the continuance of authority to induct all persons liable therefor under the aforesaid act is essential to insure the maintenance of the required strength of the Armed Forces since voluntary enlistments in such forces and their Reserve components are greatly stimulated and influenced by the mere existence of that induction authority; and Whereas the local boards of the Selective Service System in every community of this Nation would render invaluable service in the event of an all-out emergency because of their ability to furnish manpower at local levels to any agency authorized to requisition men for specific duties; and Whereas some 40,000 of the 46,000 full and part-time officers and employees of the Selective Service System have volunteered their services to the Govern ment and receive no compensation; and Whereas the annual cost of operating the Selective Service System is only about 16 cents for every man, woman, and child in this Nation: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America in 63d Annual National Convention assembled in Los Angeles, Calif., August 3-10, 1958, That section 17(c) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act (62 Stat. 625), as amended, be further amended so that all the authority to induct persons |