Clark Advises All Students Should Take Draft Exam

Regardless of a student's rank in his class, he should take the draft deferment test, Alexander Clark, assistant director of the Office of Student Placement, advised yesterday.

The new draft law, that will probably be passed before the end of May, is likely to leave deferment of students to the discretion of local boards, Clark explained. Therefore, a student should have as much evidence as he can in favor of deferment to present to his board.

Since the test will probably be based on a nationwide mean, Clark added, nearly every Harvard student should be able to make the deferring score.

House Takes Action

In Washington, the House backed the Armed Services Committee's amendment to the draft bill and, by voice vote, decided to force the president to submit any plan for Universal Military Training to Congress. Under the original wording, the president could have put the program into operation without obtaining Congressional sanction.

At the same time, the Chief Clerk of the Committee told the CRIMSON that the group had yesterday accepted in principle an amendment to keep the deferment test from being mandatory on local boards. The clause will merely say that local boards do not have to defer on the basis of grades made on the test; it will not affect the other sections of the recent presidential order which gave blanket deferment to all graduate students in all fields and to students who maintained a certain standing in their class.

It was explained that no part of the order is mandatory now anyway and boards could choose to ignore it. But some House members wanted assurance in law that the test could not have a mandatory status. The Committee itself hopes that this amendment will appease some Administration supporters who disagreed with Major-General Hershey's system.

The House also chopped Universal Military Training down to a bare authorization for drawing up a plan to be written into law later if Congress then is in the humor to do it.