Uniformity of Administration of Draft Boards Respecting Agricultural Exemptions

EHC-ALH

MEMORANDUM for the Secretary of War.
Subject: Uniformity of administration of draft boards respecting agricultural exemptions.The President's suggestion addresses itself to an alleged lack of uniformity in the execution which the Selective Service Law is receiving or has received in so far as it applies to farm labor, and he asks that we make sure as far as possible that the several draft boards throughout the country are operating the draft law uniformly in this regard.

Permit me to observe preliminarily that the boards, in the execution of the first draft, appear to have favored agriculture. Out of a total of 13,843,518 individuals engaged in agriculture, we certified for military service but 205,731 or 1.48 percent of the total so engaged; that we inducted into the military service of this latter number less than one-half or about.74 percent. If you will glance at page 64 of the Report of the Provost Marshal General, you will note how low this percentage is in comparison with other leading industries. We accomplished this result under the original regulations which rely upon District Boards to make all exemptions permanent or temporary, on the ground of agriculture, with only such coordination of their work as it was possible to bring about by means of appeals to the President.

Under the new regulations which will govern future selection for military service, we shall have the aid of a scheme of classification which defers all skilled farm labor, all assistant, associate and higher farm managers and all heads of industrial enterprises, leaving only the unskilled farm labor with a liability to a general call for military service; and of this reduced class only those will be retained in class 1 and available for immediate call, who escape deferred classification for numerous other causes recognized by Section 4 of the Selective Service Act and the regulations thereunder. We can hardly go further than this, although some agriculturists think we should go further and protect the field of raw labor in various ways. One view submitted to me is that the floating labor supply of various localities that is employed in one section of the country and on one set of farms at one season, and in another section of the country and another set of farms at another season. After the most intensive study of the mechanical difficulty involved and of the problem at large, I reach the conclusion that this should not be done. There is no practicable way of keeping track of men of this class and having once been deferred they might or might not continue to be employed with profit to agriculture.

Not only do the new rules operate in the way I have indicated, to grant a larger measure of protection to agricultural labor, but by administrative discretion it is permissible to carry that protection further. As I have remarked to you, there is every indication that class 1 will be large enough to take care of our immediate needs. If this be true it will be a simple matter to direct local boards that in calling men to be sent to mobilization camps they defer those who are working on farms in planting or harvesting crops until such time as their services can be spared or until such time as they cease to be so engaged; and the furlough legislation now pending before Congress will permit this protection to be carried still further.

I may add further, that I am hopeful of securing greater coordination and greater uniformity in the action of boards on agricultural claims through the procedure we are now following, respecting appeals taken to the President. Up to the present time 331 appeals to the President for a more deferred classification than the boards have given have been received at the Provost Marshal General's Office. I have returned 257 of them to the District Boards with the request that they confer further with local boards respecting the disposition that ought to be made of the cases and where necessary further develop the facts of particular cases. In this correspondence I have not hesitated to offer suggestions of the action that would await the case when formally resolved at these headquarters under a given state of facts.

Notwithstanding these efforts we are making to coordinate and make uniform the action of the boards in agricultural cases, I contemplate that the charge of lack of uniformity will persist. I apprehend, however, that the alleged ununiformity will be found in nearly every case more apparent than real. I talked yesterday with a member of the District Board that has jurisdiction over the vast North Texas Country where there has been a drought. The towns are full of men who have been employed as skilled farm laborers, but who are not now so employed. Within this same district there is a territory not affected by the drought. The board has refused deferred classification to idle men in the country not affected by the drought and granted to men actually employed on agricultural enterprises in that portion of the territory where labor was scarce. I mention this as one of the infinite variety of changing circumstances found upon a survey of this broad country where a very wholesome and sound discretion of a board has been exercised in such a way as to give some semblance to a charge of ununiformity; for no doubt men whose questionaires reveal them in the same relation to agriculture as the men here in reference will have received the deferred classification.

This leads me to a further observation which I think is of importance. This is a political government. The overwhelming current of public opinion will prevail here regardless of artificial obstructions. The draft law invades so many sacred rights that public opinion is always manifest in regard to it. The draft boards comprise a cross-section of the American public. Their members are selected from the citizenry of each locality in true proportion to its population. Their administration is bound to reflect public opinion with great accuracy. I have all along been of the opinion that the law could not have established a better agency than these boards to decide all questions of exemption. If it be true that they are unduly strict in respect of their action upon agricultural claims the fact can not be charged to any defect in the President's regulations. They are as clear as language can make them. They leave nothing to deduct. They are uniform in their application. It is more probably true that any lack of uniformity charged in any case will be found to have its roots in the healthy public sentiment which is discriminating with great nicety and fairness as to the balance that should be struck between agriculture on the one hand and the military needs of the country on the other.

Of course, you do not need to be advised by me that a certain amount of ununiformity is to be expected and ought to be frankly conceded. A thousand juries in this country are passing upon what you term "the simple questions of fact" such as whether an injured plaintiff was negligent in a given set of circumstances. A thousand judges are defining for these juries what the law of negligence is and are doing their best to make the law uniform. But these juries upon the facts of each case and under personal supervision and instruction of the judges will give a thousand varying verdicts that might easily be stigmatized as "lack of uniformity." Yet, we adhere to the jury system as the very rock upon which our jurisprudence is founded. We recognize that human discretion can not be bounded between ironclad rules into an absolute uniformity of result. And so too as to our draft boards.We know that there is a shortage of labor in agriculture and all thoughtful men agree that it is produced by the lopsided industrial situation and the extremely high prices that are paid for labor in industrial centers; that the draft is relatively insignificant as a prominent cause. But the farmer sees only the draft. It is to him the most obvious and direct cause for disorder. The taking of a single additional man brings him into the columns of farm journals, to the Food Administration, to you yourself and to the President, and eventually to Congress to complain against the operations of the draft law, attention being fixed to such a marked degree upon individual cases that he multiplies without difficulty alleged inequalities in the administration, and creates a picture impressive if his statements are not challenged by an array of statistics covering the Nation. I think we have carried rules, regulations and administration under them to the farthest limit in alleviating legitimate criticism and that we ought to consider all boards as engaged in a disinterested and patriotic effort to do even-handed justice. I prefer, indeed I urge upon your attention the view that the time has not come to announce any different or new rule of explanation restricting further the discretion of these boards. If such a course should be pursued it would carry you almost immediately to decisions of individual cases and ultimately into the field of class exemptions.

Judge Advocate General.