Washington and the Nation
STOUT, JONATHAN
Washington and the Nation Labor Conscription by Decree-By Jonathan stout WASHINGTON, D. C. Labor conscription became a fad here this week. It was accomplished by Kxecutive Order instead of by...
...One of the chief points made at that time was that service in the tighmg forces should not be utilized as a punitive measure...
...The plan proposed in the legislation, which Congress rejected simply has been Inverted...
...The drafting of the older men, therefore, means facing them with the punitive alternative of forced labor or going into labor battalions behind the front...
...The meaning and subterfuge of this technique i* cpule plain,^therefore...
...That's why American labor ha* outproduced all of the totalitarian countrie* combined to date...
...A Technique for Forced Labor It was announced that the Army would need these men as replacements for men in the Army who have been released to take specific war industry jobs...
...Instead of drafting men directly to the war job, this week's executive directive first puts a uniform on the men and then permits them to tske it off again on condition that they take the jobs he Army wants them to take...
...With the backing of the President, War Mobolization Director James F. Byrnes ordered the Selective Service System to resume drafting men in the UB-to-37 age bracket...
...Plus the fact that wiser heads than our amateurish military psychologists pointed out that a free people cannot be put to forced labor, that high levels of production cannot be attained by such methods...
...Only free men and free labor can attain that...
...1 The Army has said again and again recently that it does not want men over 26...
...This week, labor conscription was slipped over on the American people despite all of the foregoing...
...It was accomplished by Kxecutive Order instead of by legislation...
...Somervell had grossly exaggerated the facts, and Congress rejected legislation providing that worker* could be drafted for war industry under penalty of being sent to the front...
...That was the verdict of the elected representatives of the people in Congress...
...The military brass hats put on a heavy scare campaign, spearheaded by Maj...
...And it was done by indirection rather than in an open, straight-forward manner...
...The question of labor conscription was placed before the present session of Cong/ess earlier this year...
...The upshot of that was to prove that Gen...
...Either way, this is not the method by which to attain high efficiency production...
...Brehon B. Somervell, several months ago...
Vol. 27 • December 1944 • No. 51
