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

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White 3

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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,

3 Includes all races other than Negro.

Source: Form 221.

TABLE 3.-Preinduction station rejection rates,12 February-June 1944: Negro

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TABLE 3.-Preinduction station rejection rates,12 February-June 1944: Negro

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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.

3 Negro rejection rates not calculated for States having less than 0.3 percent of total Negro registrants in first, second, third, fifth, and sixth registrations.

Source: Form 221.

TABLE 4.-Percent distribution of registrants rejected for failure to meet minimum intelligence standards, by educational levels, February-March 1944

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TABLE 5.-Percent of white and Negro registrants in each educational level who were rejected for failure to meet minimum intelligence standards, February-March 1944

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It is estimated that 86 percent of the mentally deficient registrants rejected during February and March were men who failed ot pass the mental tests at induction stations. The remainder were morons, imbeciles, idiots, and borderline cases of mental deficiency. The school experience of mentally deficient registrants, excluding those men rejected for "failure to meet minimum intelligence standards,' " is shown in table 6.

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TABLE 6.-Percent of registrants rejected for mental deficiency 1 in relation to educational levels, February-March 1944

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Includes morons, imbeciles, idiots, borderline mental deficiency, and deficiency not specified as to degree. Registrants who failed to meet minimum intelligence standards are not included. 2 Includes all races other than Negro. Source: Form 221.

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Reprocessed registrants_accounted for 9.8 percent of registrants rejected for mental deficiency during February and March with the proportion of white and Negro registrants being approximately equal. It is probable that some of these reprocessed men had previously been rejected for "failure to meet minimum intelligence standards. It is evident that among reprocessed registrants an effort was made to select men in the higher educational level as was the case in reprocessing registrants rejected for "failure to meet minimum intelligence standards.' Approximately two-thirds of the reprocessed mentally deficient registrants had four or more years of schooling, while among registrants not previously examined only 51.7 percent had attended school for more than 4 years.

JUNE 1, 1943, TO MAY 1944

The mental test initiated on June 1, 1943, had as a purpose the elimination of illiteracy in itself as a cause of rejection.3 Only those registrants who failed the mental qualification test were given a visual classification test for illiterate and non-English-speaking registrants. The block-counting test and the concrete direction test were additional tests which could be given if the need was indicated. Individual interviews were held to detect malingering.

Registrants who were not acceptable to the Army and the Navy on the basis of these tests were rejected for "failure to meet minimum intelligence standards," however, they were variously reported as illiterate and as mentally deficient. The rejection rates for both defects increased in June 1943 over those for earlier months in that year.

TABLE 7.-Induction station rejection rates for educational and mental deficiency during selected months: Continental United States

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Source: Form 221.

2 Educational deficiency not shown separately on November to December tabulations.

The testing procedure is described in War Department letter, AG 201.6, April 28, 1943, OC-O, Mental Induction Standards and Procedures, dated May 11, 1943.

The relative frequency with which mental and educational deficiency were recorded as principal defect in every 100 registrants examined is shown, by State, in table 8. This table, which is based on a 1623-percent sample of Forms 221 received during June and July 1943, also shows the importance of mental and educational deficiency as principal causes for rejection. It can be seen that for the continental United States, these defects were the most important recorded for 7 in every 100 registrants examined; the incidence being slightly more than 4 in "every 100 for white registrants and 23 per 100 Negro registrants examined. In the various States, Negro rates were consistently 2 to 7 times higher than those for whites, except in Kentucky where mental and educational deficiency were of first importance for 12.4 per 100 white registrants examined and 10.8 per 100 Negroes examined.

TABLE 8.-Rate of incidence as principal defect and percent of total rejections due to mental and educational deficiency, June-July 1943

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1 Includes registrants who failed to meet minimum intelligence standards as well as those reported as mentally deficient (morons, imbeciles, etc.).

2 Includes all races other than Negro.

3 Less than 200 registrants represented in June-July sample of Forms 221.

4 Data not presented because of small sample numbers.

Source: Form 221.

4 Since these forms were coded and tabulated by month of receipt rather than month of examination, the inclusion of some Forms 221 for preceding months may affect their representativeness for the period under study.

Approximately one-sixth of all the June-July rejections were due to mental and educational deficiency. Corresponding figures for white registrants were 10.4 percent and for Negroes, 39.3 percent. In four Southern States, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina mental and educational deficiency accounted for more than 35 percent of all the rejections. In each of these States, however, the defects ranked much higher as cause for rejection of Negroes than of white registrants. The percentage of rejections ranged from 14.3 percent of the white rejections in Louisiana to 23.7 percent in Alabama, whereas the percentage of Negro rejections in these four States ranged from 49.4 percent in Alabama to 63.5 percent in South Carolina.

Table 9 compares the percent distribution of principal causes for rejection during January 1944 among literate registrants and among illiterate registrants who met the minimum intelligence standards.

TABLE 9.-Percent distribution of principal causes for induction station rejection of literate registrants and of illiterate registrants who met minimum intelligence standards, January 1944

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1 Physical includes registrants rejected for physical and for neurological reasons; mental includes mental deficiency and mental disease; administrative includes aliens, and morally unfit, those occupationally unfit for service, etc.

* Includes all races other than Negro.

Source: Form 221.

It will be seen that the literate registrants were more than twice as likely to be rejected for physical reasons as for mental defects, while the illiterate registrants had almost equal chances of being rejected for physical as for mental reasons. This was not true for the illiterate Negroes, however; 55 percent of their rejections were due to physical defects, as compared to 38.3 percent for mental defects.

Data from the Office of the Surgeon General indicate that from June 1, 1943, to April 1, 1944, almost 150,000 illiterate inductees had been assigned to the Army special training units, and that about 87 percent of these men had satisfactorily completed training and were with the troops. The remaining 13 percent

had been separated from military service for various reasons.5

AUGUST 1942 TO MAY 1943

During the summer of 1942 the pressing need for rapid enlargement of the Army directed the attention of the War Department to the possible induction and training of illiterate registrants and those who had lower than a fourth-grade educational level. The result was that War Department Circular No. 169 issued June 1, 1942, stated that "effective in August, any registrant who is able to understand simple orders in English and who possesses sufficient intelligence to absorb military training rapidly is eligible for induction into the military service." However, the induction of registrants unable to read and write English as well as a fourth-grade pupil was restricted to not more than 10 percent of the white and 10 percent of the colored registrants accepted on any day by any induction station.

In February 1943, the Army and Navy established joint induction stations. The Navy accepted only registrants with a fourth-grade education; the Army reduced its quota basis for illiterates and non-English-speaking registrants to a combined rate "not to exceed 5 percent of the total number of men accepted and assigned to the Army by color at each induction station on each day."

5 Data from report delivered by the Surgeon General, War Department, at a meeting of Selective Service State medical officers, June 6, 1944.

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