much, in a little less scientific or less complicated form, perhaps, the things we have in these two reports.

(The article referred to will be found at the end of General Hershey's statement.)

General HERSHEY. I would like to say that as of August 1 we show somewhere around 4,800,000 men ages 18 to 37 have been rejected for the armed forces, and of this number 856,000 have been rejected for mental diseases and an additional 235,000 have been rejected for what we tabulate as neurological cases. In addition to that there are 676,000 that have been turned down for mental deficiency, which, of course, includes educational, but it also includes the morons, the imbeciles, and the idiots.

If you take one figure, you have about 1,091,000 out of the 4,800,000 that have been rejected for mental diseases, and neurological reasons. If you add the 676,000 that are in the mental and educational deficiency classification, then you have 1,767,000.

Now, I think we can say that about 80 percent of the men rejected for mental diseases during wartime come in the psychoneurotic or psychopathic-personality field, and the other 20 percent are for other causes. Eighty percent of those rejected for mental diseases were in the field of the psychoneurotic and psychopathic personality and rather than well, I hesitate as a layman to say "something more serious," but I think to some extent that probably is true.

There are quite a number of things in here that I think the committee will be interested in when they come to study it. That is, the relationship of age and the attempt to break down, perhaps into four or five groups, these mental diseases. I doubt if I would serve any purpose at this time by laboring the committee with very detailed information, and I would rather answer any questions that I might, and make available information, and if the committee in their study would find they would want additional data we could furnish, obviously we would be very glad to do so.

Mr. PRIEST. The study that you have made will be made a part of the record. Perhaps there are some questions at this time.

General Hershey, these figures, as I tried to keep up with them as you gave them, the total number of those rejected for some form of mental illness, was 1,767,000?

General HERSHEY. That is right.

Mr. PRIEST. Out of a total rejected group altogether of 4,800,000? General HERSHEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. PRIEST. Those are the correct figures?

General HERSHEY. Those are the correct figures, and it is the greatest single cause by a very, very large percentage, that is, we haven't any other single cause probably that runs above 400,000.

Mr. PRIEST. No other single cause more than 400,000?

General HERSHEY. Yes, sir. I might say that we are not presuming to say that men who were rejected for other causes, other men, might not have psychoneurotic or psychopathic personalities, but they were not listed as main causes. I will not say that some of these people who were rejected did not have something else wrong with them, but they were rejected primarily and tabulated primarily as we have them here.

Mr. PRIEST. Your office does not have, I suppose, a tabulation— that would probably be in the Surgeon General's office of the Armyof the number up to this time that have been discharged after having been inducted for psychoneurotic reasons.

General HERSHEY. Obviously we have done some work in that field. I think the Army is here, and the Navy, and personally I would prefer not to discuss something I haven't the primary responsibility for. If it should develop there is something we might happen to have done for our own work that they are not able to furnish, we would be glad to furnish it. I have a fairly good-sized study on that, but I would prefer not to go into that field.

Mr. PRIEST. One more question, then: In view of your experience as Director of Selective Service in the past 5 years General, you feel that there should be some action by the Federal Government to develop and put into operation a national program for research, training, and study in connection with psychoneurotic ailments?

General HERSHEY. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to be in the position of appearing to pass the buck or avoid the question. I prefer to answer it in this way: I don't presume to know whether it should be study, whether it should be hospitalization, whether it should be education. I don't presume to know what it should be, but perhaps one of the two or three things that I feel is most vital for the future, that has been brought to my attention as Director of Selective Service, this ranks with one or two or three of what I think the most pressing problems the country is faced with. I am not presuming on a solution, but I have said many times that whether our advancement in knowledge has made it possible to realize the situation we have always been in, or whether or not we are rapidly changing, is immaterial. It has something to do with the solution. But I do believe that the tendency of the country to continue or grow in psychiatric work or neuropsychiatric disorders, as an ailment these disorders, whether or not they are wholly nonbodily, as we normally think of bodily, or whether they are in connection with bodily disorders, so far as I am concerned, is immaterial.

I think one of the greatest dangers to the future of this country is through our inability to resist those things, or if they have already existed, not to eliminate them. I am very much concerned about it. It has been one of the things, as we have gone through this, that we have been concerned with. It is needless and useless to talk of democracy, and talk of each citizen carrying on his responsibility, if 17 or 18 percent of the people you examine are not able to do that because of something that cannot be seen by the average individual. It is just as bad for the fellow that happens to have these abnormalities, if we want to call them that, and one of the most difficult things in war, in operating a Selective Service System, is to try to explain to the rest of the people why you do not require military service of an individual who, for everything they can see, looks perfectly able to carry out his military responsibility. If a man has got a leg off, he is no morale problem, but if he has one side of the internal arrangements of his head gone, you cannot see it.

I don't want to burden the committee with a layman's feelings about this, but as long ago as 1931 or 1932 I did make some lay inquiry,

as a military man, supposedly, into the relationship of some of these things to military service, and expecially the military command.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Just let me ask you this. Without dabbling into what the Army and Navy has done, I was wondering if you couldn't furnish the committee privately, if you don't care to have it in the record, with the figures you mentioned and the facts in connection therewith.

General HERSHEY. It is entitled "Principal Defects of Enlisted Men Discharged from the Army for Disability, 1942 to 1944." I would be glad to leave it here. The material I got quite obviously from the Army. I think I have tabulated it accurately, but I think they have tried to break down the same sort of things we have done here under rejections.

Mr. PRIEST. Is there anything else? If not, we certainly thank you, General Hershey.

(The documents referred to above are as follows:)

ILLITERACY AND EDUCATIONAL DEFICIENCY AMONG SELECTIVE SERVICE

REGISTRANTS

NOVEMBER 1940 TO JUNE 1944

It is difficult to determine the exact number of illiterate and mentally déficient registrants who have been rejected since November 1940, because of the reprocessing of previously rejected registrants as standards have changed. Figures are available, however, which provide the basis for a fairly accurate estimate of the number rejected as well as the number of illiterate or educationally deficient men inducted into the armed forces. These data indicate that approximately 593,000 mentally and educationally deficient registrants 18 to 37 years of age were in class IV-F or classes with "F" designations on July 1, 1944. It is estimated that 250,000 of these registrants were rejected solely for educational deficiency. As for the others, this was the principal cause for rejection but was accompanied by one or more additional defects which were also disqualifying in nature.

By way of orientation there have been, since November 1940, four distinct and separate changes in the standards of the armed forces in accepting illiterate and educationally deficient registrants for general military service. The last of these major changes occurred on June 1, 1944, and provided for a new mental testing procedure designed to better test those registrants with border-line educational qualifications. Previous revisions of the standards dealt with the acceptability of educationally deficient registrants on a quota basis. It may be briefly summarized as follows: (a) Registrants who could understand simple orders given in the English language were acceptable for induction from November 1940 until May 15, 1941; (b) all educationally deficient registrants were rejected from the peacetime Army because of lack of training facilities, effective May 15, 1941; (c) on August 1, 1942, provisions were made for the induction of educationally deficient registrants on a quota basis, and; (d) on June 1, 1943, provisions were made for the acceptance of all registrants who were illiterate but not mentally deficient as determined by a test or series of tests designed to measure their mental capacity.

The data which follow begin with the change of June 1, 1944, and review the changes in standards and the effect of these changes back to November 1940.1

JUNE 1, 1944

The mental and educational capacity of all non-high-school graduates continued to be measured first by the mental qualification test which has been in use at the joint Army and Navy induction stations since June 1, 1943. However, the score for passing this test has been raised slightly so that about 25 percent more registrants fail the test and, therefore, are required to take a second or group target test. The latter was designed to gage muscle coordination as well as ability to follow simple directions. Registrants who fail this test are divided into two groups: Those who speak English and those who do not. Each group takes a

1 War Department letter AG 220.01 (March 23, 1944), OC-H SPGAP Subject: Standards and Procedure or Determining the Minimum Mental Capacity Required for Induction into the Armed Forces.

special test and only registrants who fail these tests are rejected for "failure to meet minimum intelligence standards."

It is estimated that approximately 8 percent fewer men of the lowest intelligence level will not be acceptable to the armed forces in comparison to previous standards. As has been stated, the purpose of the new testing procedure is to give more attention to the border-line cases and, since more registrants will be requited to take the special test, there certainly will be a better chance for more registrants to fail these tests. The full effect of the new tests cannot be determined at this early date. However, tables, 1, 2, and 3 show the rejection rates, by States, which were reported for each of the months February through June 1944. The rejection rate for June indicates a slight rise as compared to that for May. This situation prevailed for both white and Negro rejection rates. The decreasing trend of rejection rates from February through May 1944 was largely the result of the efforts to process registrants in the younger age groups.2 Since there were

no important changes in standards during June 1944 except the new provisions for mental tests and since registrants under the age of 25 years were again preponderant in the June examinations, it is possible that the rising rejection rates reflect the results of the change in mental testing methods.

Among the individual States, 27 show an increase in the June rejection rate over that for May; 24 showed a higher white rate and in 19 States the Negro rate was higher. Rates for most of the Southern States increased, but in Alabama and Tennessee the Negro rates were lower than in the previous month. The reprocessing of registrants in large numbers, who were previously rejected for educational deficiency, will cause an increase in rejection rates in most instances.

A study of the registrants who were rejected for "failure to meet minimum intelligence standards" during February and March 1944 reveals that 16.5 percent of such registrants had no schooling (table 4). More than one-third (35.9 percent) had attended school from 1 to 4 years' and 39.3 percent have 4 to 8 years' schooling, while only 1 in 14 had attended school for 8 or more years. The length of school term was not always stated and 8 years' schooling does not necessarily represent 8 grades completed.

A larger proportion of white registrants had never attended school than was true for Negro registrants, the percentages being 18.1 and 14.6 percent, respectively. Negroes, on the other hand, more frequently attended school from 1 to 3 years than was true for white registrants, the percentage being 39.7 for Negro and 32.9 for white registrants. Education beyond 4 years was more frequently recorded among white registrants than among Negroes.

Only 8.3 percent of the registrants rejected for "failure to meet minimum intelligence standards" were registrants who had been previously examined at induction stations and were reprocessed. It will be seen that local boards tended to select men who had four or more years of schooling for reforwarding to induction stations since such men account for a larger portion of the reprocessed registrants than of the total rejections. This was particularly true of white registrants with over 8 years of schooling (table 5).

TABLE 1.-Preinduction station rejection rates,12 February-June 1944: All races

2 State Director Advice No. 255-F, April 7, 1944, directed local boards to postpone the processing for induction of men 26 and over who are contributing to the war effort until processing of men under 26 was accomplished.

TABLE 1.—Preinduction station rejection rates,12 February-June 1944: All races

Continued

1 Based on results of examination of those ordered to report for immediate induction as well as those given preinduction examinations.

2 Rejections do not include those acceptable for limited service but not inducted. Source: Form 221.

TABLE 2.—Preinduction station rejection rates,12 February-June 1944: White 3