Each in its own way, the nation’s 6,443 draft boards are scraping the bottoms of their I-A barrels. Urgently they are tapping other manpower pools, and the time approaches when no man and his employer can find certainty in being over 40 or a father or one-eyed or a skilled craftsman.
In San Antonio the boards, overworked like many another and far behind their quotas, had to take one-eyed men, illiterates, expectant fathers, 4-F men with curable defects. Only remaining single men were over 45, or were farmers or key war-workers deferred only upon recommendation of hard-boiled reviewing boards. Los Angeles, 50% behind quotas, desperately sent for induction almost everybody who could walk, among them a father of eleven children. Worried to sleeplessness were war plants’ personnel managers who had to replace critical workers—in August, September and October, Douglas Aircraft Co. lost 11,000 employes, some of whom took years to develop special skills.
About half of San Francisco’s boards expect to draft childless married men in two weeks. Atlanta’s boards were inducting married men without children, many another with thick glasses, poor hearing, few fingers. Such men can relieve others for duty and up to 30% of them can be repaired for combat by special medical attention. Examples: at one replacement center 18 one-eyed men are mechanics and clerks; out of a I-B battalion 10% entered officers training schools for administrative jobs.
In East Point, Ga., four firemen and three city council members were called this week for examinations. Without waiting for teenagers, Illinois draft officials started working on registrants with collateral dependents and expected to induct childless married men by Dec. 15.
The Army & Navy took one step toward making order: the banning of enlistments by essential employes in aircraft and shipbuilding plants. Draft boards and personnel officers advocated two more steps: 1) a manpower coordinator to end bureaucratic conflicts; 2) a lengthening of industry’s work week.
Emperor Haile Selassie had another way in 1935 when Mussolini’s troops attacked: “Everyone will now be mobilized, and all boys old enough to carry a spear will be sent to Addis Ababa. Married men will take their wives to carry food and cook. Those without wives will take any women without husbands. Women with small babies need not go. The blind, those who cannot walk or for any reason cannot carry a spear, are exempt. Anyone found at home after receipt of this order will be hanged.”
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Donald Trump Is TIME's 2024 Person of the Year
- TIME’s Top 10 Photos of 2024
- Why Gen Z Is Drinking Less
- The Best Movies About Cooking
- Why Is Anxiety Worse at Night?
- A Head-to-Toe Guide to Treating Dry Skin
- Why Street Cats Are Taking Over Urban Neighborhoods
- Column: Jimmy Carter’s Global Legacy Was Moral Clarity
Contact us at letters@time.com