For three years the Administration had juggled the nation's manpower, substituting makeshifts for direct action. Reflecting on the legal machinery available, Home Front Czar Jimmy Byrnes philosophized: "When you can't ride a horse, ride a mule; if you can't ride a mule, ride a cow." But at week's end the Administration sounded like a man who hoped to ride a horse.
Proposing a National Service Act again but this time as though he really meant itFranklin Roosevelt told Congress:
"It is not too late in the war. . . . Bitter experience has shown . . . the closer we come...