Making the Draft Work

The most important defects in the present selective service system probably will not be corrected until the war in Vietnam is resolved. The standards which local boards apply in granting deferments and exemptions may be imprecise and inequitable; they may waste human resources and stimulate a "draft-evasion mentality." But until the fighting ends, any major reform would risk undermining the morale of soldiers previously drafted, who might consider themselves the victims of an unfair system. Reorganizing the entire structure -- from the local boards up -- would create a period of confusion and uncertainty, further impairing the war effort and this country's position in Vietnam.

And yet, even if there is little hope of changing the standards which the local boards must use, one may reasonably ask that these standards be applied consistently and uniformly. For the confusion and uncertainty created by the present system also undermines the war effort. The seemingly irrational and arbitrary character of local board decisions turns tentative support into cautious opposition in the minds of students and provides ammunition for those who would convert the doubters into demonstrators.

In the past six months the manpower demands on draft boards have differed widely from one part of the country to another, and the boards have tightened deferments without trying to establish either precedents or principles. Boards in southern states, for example, have already drafted substantial numbers of full-time students, while in other regions -- the Midwestern and Middle Atlantic states -- there is no indication that boards will take undergraduates. In affluent districts which send large numbers of their young men to college (and in farm districts where many registrants are draft-exempt agricultural employees) boards have been extremely hard-pressed to find eligible non-students. Some boards have inducted graduates and undergraduates who have taken a year's leave of absence, and others have not. Boards have applied different criteria in judging whether or not an individual has dependents, whether his particular field of graduate study is "in the national interest," and whether a student is "full-time" and making "satisfactory progress."

Granted that a certain amount of particularity in the decisions of the boards is inevitable, and that the element of chance can never be entirely eliminated since these decisions are made by people rather than machines, there is still no excuse for the wide divergence which now prevails. The problem would be solved by making the boards' system of quotas and reports work in practice as it should in theory. These reports, outlining the number and characteristics of local boards' registrants, are sent to state headquarters, where they are correlated and passed on to General Hershey's headquarters in Washington. On the basis of this information, federal of ficials allocate quotas to the states, and state headquarters then attempt to spread the burden equally among local boards.

Improving this system of quotas and reports by introducing more extensive computerization, fuller descriptions of men in the draft pool, and closer supervision of state decisions would eliminate many of the geographical discrepancies which plague the present system. This increase in accuracy and efficiency would require no major reform or expenditure. It would result, rather, from ad hoc revisions, made within the framework of existing procedure. The cost of the innovations would be minor compared to the damage which the present system will produce if allowed to continue unimproved.