A Draw for Fathers

When the "father draft" bill became law, the Army won a point of prestige, Manpowerman Paul McNutt lost political face, and U.S. fathers broke even.

The Draw. Montana's Senator Burton K. Wheeler had fought for a sharp-toothed bill which would save every pre-Pearl Harbor father from the draft until the last childless man in the U.S. had been inducted. As finally amended and signed by the President, the bill was well-intentioned and toothless: fathers will be kept at the bottom of draft lists so long as this does not affect "the orderly flow of men into the armed forces."

To protect fathers, single men in so-called "essential jobs" will be reconsidered as possible draftees. The lists of 3.6 million 4-Fs will be combed again--just in case there are any almost-healthy men who might, after all, make adequate soldiers. A new five-man medical board will be set up to try to lower the Army's physical standards. But whenever the Army needs young & healthy fathers, they will be called.

The Winner. Major General Lewis B. Hershey, who formerly reported (on paper) to WMC's McNutt, became full boss of Selective Service. He had never favored the idea of a sharp-toothed father draft bill. Last week General Hershey told a manufacturers' convention in Manhattan that the Army would probably need and would have to take another 1,000,000 fathers by July 1944. Next day he wired all local boards to go easy on family men.

The Loser. Grey, glossy Paul McNutt had stubbornly fought the bill because it would "sabotage" his so-called overall manpower program. The President's signature was a staggering blow to the man who gave up his almost-sure nomination as the 1940 Vice-Presidential candidate in favor of Mr. Roosevelt's man Wallace.

The Washington Times-Herald reported that sympathetic friends were "bleeding for McNutt." But Paul McNutt kept silence; did not resign.

And he could console himself thus: he had merely been stripped of sweeping powers which he never really had.

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