Only the Strong

One afternoon last week, on the stage of Washington's Departmental Auditorium, Brigadier General Lewis Elaine Hershey dipped his hairy hand into a brown wastebasket. He plucked out a cobalt-blue capsule, thrust it behind his back. A brunette young woman snatched the capsule, shook out a piece of paper, handed the paper to a blonde. The blonde attached the paper to a white card, passed the card to a male announcer at a microphone. The announcer spoke meaningless words (for practice) into the microphone, handed the card to a Boy Scout. The Boy Scout slipped it to another Boy Scout, and thus from hand to hand of four more Scouts to a blond, wispy young man at a photographic recording machine. With a dainty flourish, the blond young man tripped the shutter of his machine, then handed the card to a pair of young women, who removed the numbered paper, pasted it on a sheet. In the vast auditorium pit, scores of newsmen and photographers paid practically no attention while the same rigmarole was repeated over & over. Finally, Brigadier General Hershey & team could handle 14 cards and numbers a minute.

All this apparent mummery was serious: it was a rehearsal for the U. S. Selective Service commission's first draft lottery.

Just before noon next day, Brigadier General Hershey's brunettes, blondes, Boy Scouts and young men took their places.

The wastebasket had been replaced by the huge glass jar from which draft numbers were drawn in 1917. Photographers' lights beat upon 8,994* blue capsules in the jar, shedding a blue radiance on the stage. Selective Service Director Clarence Addison Dykstra and Brigadier General Hershey walked in. Slowly behind them came President Roosevelt, on the arm of his secretary "Pa" Watson. The blue-suited President looked tired, grey, exhausted by his campaign. Said he to the nation (paraphrasing a favorite phrase of Wendell Willkie) and to the 17,000,000 registrants who were about to have their numbers drawn: ". .

Only the strong may continue to live in freedom and in peace." Secretary of War Henry Lewis Stimson, 73, stepped to the jar. Fragile, twittery Lieut. Colonel (retired) Charles R. Morris, who blindfolded Newton D. Baker for the first draft drawings of World War I, did the same for Mr. Stimson (with a bandage made from the cover of a chair in Independence Hall, sanitized with a sheet of Kleenex). Secretary Stimson gingerly put his left hand in the jar, took the first capsule he touched, handed it to Mr. Roosevelt. The President, old stager that he was, glanced at the newsreel and radio men, got their nod before he intoned: "The first number is one--five--eight." Registration serial number 158, held by some 6.175 registrants throughout the U. S.. thus became Draft Order No. 1.

In the crowded auditorium, Mrs. Mildred C. Bell gasped: 158 was her 21-year-old son Harry's number. A friend sitting beside her squawked with excitement, bringing newsmen, radio announcers and temporary fame upon the Bells and Harry's fiancee. There was another 158 in Mr. Roosevelt's audience: Herbert Jacob Ehrsam. 34, a Civil Service Commission employe. Said he: "I didn't know whether to stand up and salute, or just remain quiet." He kept quiet, and nobody knew he was there.

Messrs. Roosevelt & Stimson made way for other dignitaries, who drew the next 18 registration serial numbers (192, 8,239, 6,620, 6,685, 4,779, 8,848, 6,262, 8,130, 5,892, 5,837, 5,485, 6,604, 8,946, 5,375, 7,674, 4,880, 4,928, 105). Then Brigadier General Hershey's crew took over, finished the job. It took them until 5:48 a.m. next day. Out over the U. S., by radio and news ticker, the numbers flowed, establishing the "national master list," which along with personal and local circumstances would determine the order in which 17,000,000 men, aged 21 to 35, might be called for a year of Army training. Draft folklore gained some items:

> Alden C. Flagg Sr. of Boston held the first number (258) drawn in 1917. His 27-year-old son held 158 last week.

> "As Always, Drennen Is First," Drennen Motor Co. advertised in Birmingham. One of its mechanics held 158.

> At Austin, Minn., Miss Reika Schwanke turned up as the only woman who had succeeded in registering for the draft. Registrant Schwanke explained that she misunderstood a radio broadcast, went to her local registration place and persuaded a woman registrar to sign her up. Said Reika Schwanke: "There ought to be some place for a woman in the Army."

> Joseph B. Kirby Jr., a Rockingham, N. H. race-track cashier who had 158, wired the President: "Am honored."

> Sergeant Alvin C. York, 52, World War I's famed hero, now chairman of his draft board at Jamestown, Tenn., was so successful in urging registrants to volunteer before they were drafted, that he overtaxed the Army's local recruiting facilities. "They are rarin' to go," said he.

> Among the names of Manhattan registrants who held 158: Farruggia, Chan, Cody, Weisblum. Stazzone, Gordon, Lichtenstein.

> President Roosevelt's son John, 24, was 7.268th in the drawings, thus had some prospect of being drafted "for the Third World War" (favorite crack among high-number holders last week).

> Holders of Registration No. 13 were among those who had a fairly high order number (3,519).

Draft Arithmetic. At first sight, it looked as if only the mathematically strong could understand the draft's complications. After last week's drawing, each registrant had two numbers.* One was his serial number (which he was allotted after he registered on Oct. 16). Serial numbers allotted up to Lottery Day ran from 1 through 7,836 (only one man in each local draft district had the same serial number). These were the numbers which were in the blue capsules for the drawing in Washington. The order in which they were drawn became the serial-number holders' national draft order number (i.e., holders of serial 158 had Order No. 1).

The order numbers thus became more important to the 17,000,000 registrants than their serial numbers. But the fact that a registrant had a low order number by no means insured him an early call to the Army; neither did a high order number necessarily guarantee that its holders would not be called soon. Many factors (age, dependents, occupation, health, etc.) determined each registrant's chances. Most vital factor (and least clear to registrants last week) was the composite make-up of the registered group in each local draft district. For example: The Army intends to call up 800,000 one-year trainees by next June 15 (the first 30,000 are to be called Nov. 18). Last week Selective Service headquarters first allotted gross quotas to each State, then deducted from these totals the number of men from each State who were already in service. Result: each State's net quota./- State draft administrators could then break up their Statewide quotas into the quotas for each local draft district.

And that was where the registrants' actual, mathematical worries began.

For each local board in effect has to set up its own list (from the "master list") of the order numbers held by registrants in its area. In the sequence in which these numbers appear on the local list, the board then sends out detailed questionnaires to prospective draftees. From the answers to these questions, each board then classifies registrants in four main groups: 1) those apparently eligible and fitted for service; 2) three groups of "deferred" men who are ineligible, unavailable or unfitted.

Only group that will actually count in the draft for many months is Class 1-A (single, physically fit, not at work in "necessary" industries). The board may have to send out several sets of questionnaires to get enough Class 1-A registrants for its quotas. In a factory area, for instance, many holders of low order numbers on the national list may be classified in "necessary" occupations and thus deferred. Result: in such an area a registrant with an order number above 1,000 may find himself called ahead of his neighbor, with No. 20. Last week registrants could not know what their chances of being called actually were until their local lists were set up, the first batches of questionnaires had been answered.

Draft Rules. In the patriotic hurly-burly of draft registration and drawings, manv a draftee still had a lot to learn last week about what had happened to him.

Something that had happened to all the 17,000,000, whether or not they were marked for armed service, was new in U. S. life: continuous, detailed responsibility to local draft boards. The members of these boards in fact had become among the most potent of U. S. citizens.

Registrants must henceforth notify their local boards of any important change in their ways of living: a new job, discharge from an old job, a new baby, marriage, divorce, the death of a dependent, a change of address, even a prolonged visit to another locality. A registrant who wants to leave the U. S. must get his local board's permission beforehand. Reason: such changes would probably affect a registrant's liability or availability for service. Penalty for willful failure to "tell your local draft board" is the same as for any other violation of the Selective Training and Service Act: imprisonment up to five years, fines up to $10,000, or both. In practice, reprimands will serve for first, minor infractions (unless boardmen and courts are unco-testy).

The oft-repeated phrase "21 to 35" had led many a registrant to believe that he would be beyond his local board's supervision, as well as out of the draft, once he passed 36. The fact: all men who were between 21 and 35 on Registration Day, and not otherwise exempt, will be legally liable to call until September 1945. This rule holds true even if a man turned 36 on Oct. 17. Practically, of course, as registrants near 40, their chances of being wanted for the Army will steadily lessen. But youngsters who turn 21 between now and 1945 will be subject to registration and drafting (when the President chooses to proclaim subsequent Registration Days for them).

*There should have been 9,000. Six which were mysteriously missing were replaced and drawn in a later lottery. *In theory. Actually, several hundred thousand registrants had not received their serial numbers by Lottery Day. Additional lotteries will be held for them. /-The net quotas up to June 30, 1941: Alabama, 13,711; Arizona, 3,098; Arkansas, 8,946; California, 38,017; Colorado, 3,837; Connecticut, 8,421; Delaware, 1,329; District of Columbia, 3,982; Florida, 10,370; Georgia, 12,792; Idaho, 1,954; Illinois, 62,223; Indiana, 21,087; Iowa, 11,738; Kansas, 8,388; Kentucky, 9,154; Louisiana, 15,084; Maine, 3,081; Maryland, 12,564; Massachusetts, 20,556; Michigan, 47,282; Minnesota, 18,652; Mississippi, 12,759; Missouri, 23,619; Montana, 2,563; Nebraska, 6,456; Nevada, 624; New Hampshire, 1,579; New Jersey, 32,170; New Mexico, 2,962; New York, 114,796; North Carolina, 15,613; North Dakota, 3,401; Ohio, 52,497; Oklahoma, 9,365; Oregon, 2,806; Pennsylvania, 61,522; Rhode Island, 3,118; South Carolina, 5,957; South Dakota, 3,525; Tennessee, 14,229; Texas, 33,213; Utah, 2,153; Vermont, 1,206; Virginia, 9,747; Washington, 5,821; West Virginia, 8,454; Wisconsin, 21,632; Wyoming, 1,047. United States: 789,000.

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