Give Us the Blueprints III

In spite of extended discussions about the role of the university in wartime, in spite of V-plans and reserve corps, the problem of getting the college man in the place where he will be most valuable is still unsolved. Only 100,000 men in each college class are physically fit for active duty, yet the Army and Navy are asking for 160,000 men each year, and are cutting each others' throats in an effort to corner the available supply. Meanwhile Selective Service has been forced to draft married men and essential defense workers to fill oversized quotas set up before the manpower was depleted by the numerous reserve programs.

Obviously what is needed is collaboration between the Army and Navy, Selective Service, and the colleges. Whether this is undertaken by the so far inactive War Man Power Commission or some new organization is a matter of administration, but somebody must be given the power to readjust the college quotas to the relative needs of each of the armed services. Instead of fighting neck and neck to drag men away from each other, the Army and Navy should, together with the Selective Service Board, assess the total college manpower and set up their quotas so as to use it most efficiently.

The confusion in Washington is equalled only by the maze of conflicting and overlapping programs on the college plane. Though deferment through enlistment in one of the Reserve Corps was set up originally to allow men to complete their education as quickly as possible, Army-Navy competition for manpower has led them to dangle four and even five year deferment before a student who is needed as soon as he can complete his training.

Furthermore, the differences in the reserve programs at each college are not only unfair to the student but very unwise at a time when a clear-cut national policy is sorely needed. At Harvard men taking Military Science must come to Summer School, while Navy Sci men can spend their time trout fishing. Yale Navy Sci men are obliged to accelerate, while Princetonians have their choice. The entire structure of the college officer procurement system is confused and inefficient. It is no wonder that only twenty per cent of the V-1 and Enlisted Reserve Corps quotas have been filled.

Yet the confusion and lack of direction continue. College men still query, "What should I do?" Director Hershey states publicly that he will be forced to draft any man applying for the ERC who has not yet been accepted, and the pretentious War Manpower Commission under Paul McNutt stands idly by. There is now before the War Manpower Commission a War Service Bill, comparable to the one in England, which would mobilize the total manpower of the nation--now. Nothing is more important than for the bill to set up a plan which will eliminate the present incoherence. For if we ever expect to have a seven million man army and a navy double its present size, every college man will have to play his part. It's time he was told once and for all what that part is.