General HERSHEY. I think the Director of War Mobilization-now, we are not talking about anything but the moving of people?

Senator O'MAHONEY. That is right.

General HERSHEY. May I just, for the sake of some clarity, take the county of Los Angeles, and let us assume that the aircraft industry cannot get men, and that the War Mobilization Office decides that they have to apply the second part of this bill, namely, declare the county of Los Angeles a particular area and give them 30 days in which to use all of the voluntary methods to try to meet the conditions. At the end of 30 days they haven't met them.

I look upon this bill as a means for the War Director to say that all men under 26 who are not in essential industries are hereby told that they shall apply for work in the aircraft industry, and failing to do so, he would call on the local boards to start calling these men in as individuals and say to them, "Why haven't you moved?" And if we delegate the power which was in the original bill, those local boards would have a right to say to a man, who says he has so many children to support, and so forth, to say, "All right, you are excused." The local board will make a determination in another case that this man should be moved.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Then it is the local board that would make the determination whether this man should move?

General HERSHEY. If the Director of War Mobilization delegated it to them. The Director of War Mobilization can delegate that otherwise, if he wants to, I think.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Let us take the hypothetical case that you A certain number of workers are needed in an airplane plant in Los Angeles. They have not been secured by the voluntary method. Let us assume that 50,000 are required. A call then goes forward to the Selective Service to produce 50,000 men. How is Selective Service going to produce them?

General HERSHEY. Under the present bill that would not go to Selective Service unless the Director of War Mobilization gave that responsibility to them. If he did, my concept is that Selective Service would have to decide first of all whether there were that number of men in Los Angeles County. If not he would have to take them from some other county.

Senator O'MAHONEY. May I call your attention to page 4, line 24, of the printed bill. Do you have it?

General HERSHEY. Yes.

Senator O'MAHONEY (reading):

(C) if the requirements of the certification have not been met under subparagraph (B) within the time fixed

the Director

shall direct the local boards in such area, and also local boards outside the area to the extent that he may deem necessary, to order (subject to regulations prescribed by him) registrants within the categories so designated and capable of performing the work involved (in numbers sufficient to meet the requirements of the certification) to make, within such time as he may prescribe, application *

Now, as you conceive the operation of this law, would the local board have the responsibility of picking out John Jones and Dick Smith to make the application, or whom?

General HERSHEY. The categories that we designated would be, for instance, all men under a certain age, or all men not engaged in

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essential activities, or any other category you want, and men within those categories, as I read this bill, after being notified by the local boards that they were to apply for employment at the agency prescribed, which would be the United States Fmployment Service, would be required to apply for employment. Failure to do so constitutes violation of this act, and, as amended I think it would be up to the Director of War Mobilization to ascertain who would hear their appeals and who would report them to the Selective Service, if they decided they wanted to induct them, or to the district attorney. Senator O'MAHONEY. I don't seem to be able to make myself clear. This bill as it is before us, and as it passed the House, provides that, when the Director of War Mobilization has certified the activities that are essential and must be supplied, it then becomes the duty of the Director of Selective Service, which is yourself, to designate the categories of registrants.

General HERSHEY. That is right.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Now, that obviously is a sort of a theoretical designation of age groups or skills or something of that kind. I say "theoretical" in order to make it clear that it is not an individual category.

General HERSHEY. That is right. It is a broad category.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Sort of a statistical category.
General HERSHEY. Yes.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Now, when those categories are determined and then the need for labor is determined, what I want to find out is, do you think it should be the duty of the local draft board to put the finger on the specific men who are going to constitute the 50,000 individuals who are, to use your phrase, pushed forward to the application desk?

General HERSHEY. You are asking me not what this second draft provides but what I think?

Senator O'MAHONEY. That is right.

General HERSHEY. I happen to believe, as Director of Selective Service, if the selective-service local board must make the finding on whether a man is in violation or not, they should make that independently of anything the Director of Selective Service says, or anybody else. In the other hand, this is broad enough for the Director of War Mobilization to give that to some other agency if he sees fit. I may be wrong. The Selective Service System has a specific job and we have no desire, unless needed, to get into another. Whatever we are told to do, obviously, we shall do. Under the bill as passed I think we would have to make the determination. Under the bill as amended I don't think it is necessary for us to do so, although the Director of War Mobilization might very properly give it to us if he wanted to. That would be up to him.

Senator AUSTIN. One thing that is perfectly clear in the language of the bill as now presented to us

General HERSHEY. That is the amended bill or the other? Senator AUSTIN. The one that is presented to us right there, the amended bill.

General HERSHEY. Yes.

Senator AUSTIN. It is perfectly clear that the job of selection of the individual has to be done by the local board of the Selective Service System.

General HERSHEY. His initial selection would be; yes. His acceptance would be in the hands of other agencies, and I think very properly always would have to be.

Senator AUSTIN. Well, that isn't my question.

General HERSHEY. The answer is yes.

Senator AUSTIN. When you get to the question of assignment then you go out of the local board and out of Selective Service and into whatever agency the Director appoints.

General HERSHEY. That is right.

Senator AUSTIN. And assuming that he would use the facilities that have been used up to date, that would be the U. S. E. S., wouldn't it?

General HERSHEY. That is right.

Senator AUSTIN. Then the two functions are clearly separated here, selection is vested in the Selective Service System, assignment is vested in the War Mobilization Office.

General HERSHEY. That is right. The only place where we get into confusion is when the man refuses his assignment. What agency is going to be used, if any, to decide that he is in violation? I don't think there is any doubt, no matter what bill you have, that the business of Selective Service is not placement. It is selection. We don't place people in the Army. We select them. By the same token we can't do so here. The selective-service boards are not outfitted to do placement and should not be given that responsibility.

Senator O'MAHONEY. To make my original question specific, let us narrow it a little bit. Suppose the call is for 25,000 machinists to work in the airplane factories of Los Angeles. Then do you conceive it to be the proper system for the Director of Selective Service to call on all local boards throughout the United States to produce machinists or to produce just men?

General HERSHEY. Well, my conception, based on the experience I have had through the years, and I don't believe this bill's purpose was to get into categories such as machinists, but the bill started originally as a work-or-fight bill, and was not picking up some individual and moving him from here to there, and it is a little hard for me to get the concept of this bill even that its purpose is more than to push classes, if you will, toward a need, hoping that the placement people will find enough in there to meet the need.

I feel that if you give them the men they can make them into what they need. I have lost some confidence through the years with a lot of these names that go with different sorts of mechanics. My concept isn't the picking of two or three men of a very special type from here and putting them over there.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Your thought then is that the selection should be made in the class?

General HERSHEY. That is right.

Senator O'MAHONEY. And that the men then should go into the activities where they are required and take the jobs?

General HERSHEY. Yes.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Would you take them from the whole United States?

General HERSHEY. NO.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Or from some specific area?

General HERSHEY. I am convinced that when you go into long distances you get into too many collateral problems. If you sent men for long distances, they stay a little while and then go back, because of eating arrangements, the climate, the housing, or something else. Senator O'MAHONEY. How would you define an area?

General HERSHEY. I don't know. I would want to see reasonable commuting distances.

Senator O'MAHONEY. It isn't specified in the bill.

General HERSHEY. No. Whether you think that a dozen counties in southern California is a reasonably small area I don't know. But I wouldn't think of making it State-wide, especially in large States. I probably have more faith in the first step than most folks, which is the freeze.

Senator O'MAHONEY. This bill has been before Congress for quite a while.

General HERSHEY. Yes.

Senator O'MAHONEY. It has gone through the House and has been presented over here. This particular section to which we have been referring authorizes the Director of Selective Service to prescribe regulations to do precisely this thing that we have been discussing. Have you had any work done on those regulations yet?

General HERSHEY. Yes, to some extent. Of course, as the Senator I think knows, under the Byrnes order of December we did put a freeze, an administrative freeze, on everybody deferred in II-Â and II-B up to 38 years of age, and I have felt that has been one of the very large factors in the finding of people for industry.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I am talking about regulations.

General HERSHEY. Yes. We had regulations for the freeze and the regulations for this freeze are just about the same thing except that there is 7 more years on this one. This goes up to 45 instead of 38.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I would think offhand that the problem of the freeze and the problem of the selection are utterly different problems and that the regulations that would apply to the freeze couldn't possibly apply to the selection.

General HERSHEY. That is correct, and there have been preliminary. discussions with the War Manpower Commission and Mr. Byrnes' office on the regulations for the second step, but obviously the second step follows only if necessary after the application of a long enough period of the first step to be sure that the first step won't work. I have a great deal of confidence in that first step.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Then your answer is that so far as the second step is concerned, the regulations have not been worked out?

General HERSHEY. That is right. I am sure that is correct. We have had, for the last 10 days, conversations with the War Manpower Commission, because the two of us are about the two agencies that are going to presumably have to do it.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Therefore, you cannot tell this committee precisely or even approximately what would be done by selective service if this authority were vested in you?

General HERSHEY. Well, I have a very short memorandum here that I would be glad to read. I dont know whether it will help the committee. It is about a page and a half.

The CHAIRMAN. Read it into the record.
General HERSHEY (reading):

MEMORANDUM REGARDING PROCEDURES IN CONNECTION WITH EMPLOYMENT 1. To impose a liability upon every registrant with certain exceptions, ages 18 through 44, who is not a member of the armed forces on active duty to perform work in an activity in war production or in support of the national health, safety, or interest or in an agricultural occupational endeavor essential to the war effort. The adoption of the proposed legislation would accomplish this first purpose. 2. To impose a duty on registrants ages 18 through 44 who are now employed or who hereafter become employed in an activity in war production or agricultural occupation or endeavor designated by the Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion to remain so employed unless such registrant's local board has determined that it is in the best interest of the war effort for him to leave such employment.

(a) Notify all local boards of the activities, occupations, plants, facilities, and agricultural occupations or endeavors designated by the Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion.

(b) Establish procedures for notifying all registrants engaged in designated activities of the fact that they may not change employment without obtaining a determination from their local board that it is in the best interest of the war effort for them to leave such employment.

(c) Maintain the present "freeze" as provided in selective-service regulations for an interim period during which time the new procedures can be put into effect. 3. To provide a means for the recruitment and placement of male workers in areas or plants certified as being critically in need of additional manpower either. by voluntary methods or where necessary by order of the local board.

(a) Notify all registrants 18 to 45 located in an area certified as critical under section 5 (n) (3) by publication in the Federal Register and through the public press that a labor shortage exists in that area and that they are liable under the law for placement if found to be in categories to which "requests" or "orders" to transfer may be issued if necessary.

(b) Provide for the establishment of categories by age, marital, or occupational status of registrants who will be issued "orders" to make application for employment in the activities, occupations, and endeavors specified in the certification. (c) Establish procedures to utilize the facilities of other Federal Government agencies in referring registrants who "volunteer" or are "ordered" to apply for employment in certified activities, occupations, or endeavors.

4. To provide the privileges and rights of reemployment and of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940 to those registrants ages 18 through 44 who when "requested" or "ordered" by their local boards become employed in an activity certified by the Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion.

(a) Provide that the public notice referred to under paragraph 3 above will also constitute a "request" that registrants within specified categories become employed in activities, occupations, and endeavors covered by the certification. This will make it possible for registrants who voluntarily become engaged in certified plants or activities to have their rights to reemployment established, thereby aiding management, labor, agriculture, and Government to meet manpower requirements by voluntary recruiting.

(b) Establish methods of maintaining records on registrants who change employment pursuant to a "request" or "order" to aid such registrants in establishing their reemployment rights.

5. To establish the reemployment rights of certain veterans who accept employment in essential war activities.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Burton, would you like here to ask about section 6?

Senator BURTON. Yes. General Hershey, I would like to call your attention to section 6 of the bill which relates to the application of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940. That adds a new section which would make all provisions of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act, except those relating to insurance, applicable to persons volunteering or ordered under section 5 (n) (4) but not to those frozen under 5 (n) (2), which would result in the provisions relative to the payment of taxes, and so forth, being applicable if they were volunteering or were ordered but not applicable if frozen. I wondered if you had given consideration to the feasibility of that kind of a distinction.