Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram:

"Hiter and Gobbels have announced their determination to draft every man and woman in Germany to serve the Axis war cause in one capacity or another; they also propose to impress into their service the populations of satellite and occupied countries. Americans and other free peoples cannot afford to do less. This is total war."

Mobile (Ala.) Press:

"President Roosevelt admits some form of labor draft may have to come in the end. Well, then, why delay when delay can only mean an increased cost in blood as the price of victory? Wouldn't it be better to temporarily sacrifice some freedom for a quicker victory at a smaller cost in lives?

*

Why does the President procrastinate and hesitate in this vital matter? Could it be that his vision has been clouded by consciously or unconsciously viewing the issue too much from the angle of labor and politics? It could be."

Streator (Ill.) Times-Press:

"We cannot wage total war with individual claims for exceptional exemptions. We cannot wage total war with any class or any individual for that matter claiming a freedom which emergency conditions can never warrant. We are citizens of this Nation before we are laborers, capitalists, or any class whatever. The more we can obliterate the privileges which separate those who are compelled to serve from those who are not compelled, the nearer we shall be to the realities of democratic liberty."

Salisbury (N. C.) Post:

"The soldier has no alternative of employers; he works for Uncle Sam, or else. He cannot bargain as to salary. He cannot demand overtime pay schedules. He cannot take time off if he gets bored or tired or sick. He has none of the privileges which would be retained by labor under the Austin-Wadsworth bill. Is he, therefore, a serf? Not at all. He is a loyal American, doing for his country what the law and his conscience require. His involuntary servitude is for the duration. Neither would the laborer be a serf. He would be protected by volumes of laws enacted to assure that no employer shall take advantage of him; by a dozen and one alert, worker-partial Federal and State agencies; by politicians who know whence their votes come; by vigilant public watchfulness. His wage, working conditions, living conditions, all are amply secured. He could not be exploited."

Stamford (N. Y.) Mirror-Recorder:

"We don't like being pushed around nor told that we must get along with less food, less gasoline, that we must conserve on shoes and rubber, and that some of our pleasures must be curtailed. But practically all the belligerent nations are being subjected to these very conditions; and unless we bring ourselves to the definite realization that we must make an all-out effort-which includes more sacrifices and more inconveniences than we are now making-to win this war, it's going to be a long and hard road to victory. And it's our studied opinion that if the American people are unwilling voluntarily to place themselves at the service of our country and where needed, then it is the business of the Government to conscript them; and we believe the Austin-Wadsworth measure is a reasonable and logical means to this end."

Toledo (Ohio) Blade:

"Expedients are still being tried. The political approach is still being used to avoid as long as possible putting on a pinch everywhere. Congress and the administration still are trying to fight a global war without hurting voters." Washington Star:

"Certainly neither Mr. Green nor anyone else would insist upon the right of collective bargaining or the closed shop at the price of losing or prolonging the war. It is not clear that his apprehensions on either point are well founded, but even if they were they could not be permitted to stand in the way of fighting this war in the fashion which promises the quickest victory and the least loss of life. * * ** Every other major power in the war has resorted to compulsory service, but we are still muddling and the indications are that we will continue to do so for some time to come."

Buffalo Courier-Express:

"If we can't win a war without regimentation, then any delay in establishing an effective system of regimentation is simply delaying victory. Mr. Roosevelt's temporizing attitude on the subject of national service legislation hardly shows to his advantage in comparison with the viewpoint of the War Department, which recognizes clearly that the effort needed to do the war job and win the war is

not complete--and won't be until the Austin-Wadsworth bill becomes law." New London (Conn.) Day:

**

"President Roosevelt is quoted as saying that he agrees a national universal service act to utilize civilians in any capacity in which they can help the war effort, may be necessary before the war is over but that he doesn't want to see such a bill passed right now The President's statement brings to the forefront, once more, a curious trait common to this Government in this war. Don't do it until it becomes absolutely necessary. Put it off as long as you can. Let things drift and hope for the best. We have done it, for instance, in the case of rubber. There was little sense and reason to our program until a rubber director was appointed, and even now he confesses he is stymied in many ways by 'let's wait' rules and regulations."

New York Herald Tribune:

"We are not surprised that the National Association of Manufacturers should join hands with organized labor in opposing a national service act. Employers, as a class, no more than labor leaders, are anxious to have the Government step in and tell industry whom to employ and where and under what conditions. So far as that goes, no American conscious of his country's traditions can advocate a conscription of workers save as compelled by extraordinary emergency. The one argument for it is that of grim necessity. Is that necessity present? Secretary Stimson and his Under Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, have insisted it is. Even the President has intimated pretty plainly that he could see it approaching Naturally, we like that phrase, "There is no substitute for the initiative and willing effort of free men.' It is as true in a peace economy, but when a Nation is in a total war and requires for its survival the mobilization and efficient allocation of its entire manpower there is a substitute in the willing dedication of a whole people to the cause of victory. Great Britain has proved that."

* *

Minneapolis (Minn.) Morning Tribune:

"Admittedly the Austin-Wadsworth bill, if enacted, would give the President vast and unprecedented powers, not easily distinguished from totalitarianism. But the plain and simple fact is that this war cannot be fought without a certain measure of totalitarianism and the only debatable quetsions are the duration of the need and the amount required; whether we want to go 35 percent totalitarian or 100 percent, and when we'll have done with it."

Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Whether a manpower draft, as proposed in the Austin-Wadsworth bill, is immediately needed, requires study. Some such measure will become necessary sooner or later. We can hardly avoid that conclusion. But we should, in dealing with the question, avoid the mistake of delaying effective action about it as was done regarding the farm deferments. We can't afford delays and ineffectiveness in any phase of this war. We can solve the farm problem; we can win other vitally needed victories on the home front. But we've got to have plans that will work, made in plenty of time, and not under the guns of threatening food shortages and other emergencies."

Columbia (Mo.) Missourian:

"Just as it is impossible to raise a military army through voluntary enlistments alone, so it is reasonable to assume that a production army can't be raised entirely by voluntary methods, which operate in a labor market when wages are frozen to prevent inflation."

Haverhill (Mass.) Gazette:

"When a labor draft is recognized as something that may be needed, the thing to do is prepare for it before the need becomes imperative. If we don't, and the need becomes imperative, precious time will be lost in a task of preparation that can be performed now."

Philadelphia Bulletin:

"Our present method of recruiting labor is not purely voluntary. Threats that men of draft age will be inducted into the Army unless they are working in essential jobs are relied upon to force transfers. The armed forces do not gain the respect they are entitled to when they are used as a means of punishment." Schenectady (N. Y.) Union-Star:

"The Government already has conscripted whatever it has required from capital-factories, ships, land, goods, money. It has not conscripted labor. On the contrary, labor has been free to come and go wherever wages were highest. We are not certain that, unless it gets all it needs, the Government may not take

over the deposits of the people in the banks. Under certain conditions, with everything else conscripted, can labor expect to escape it?"

Appleton (Wis.) Post Crescent:

"We simply must win this war. And it cannot be won, in the judgment of a great many, including this newspaper, unless every cylinder in industry functions and every fertile acre is made to bear essential food, and then only after years of desperate struggle."

Burlington (Vt.) Free Press:

"What Mr. Green fails to recognize, and what the Austin-Wadsworth bill does, is the inescapable fact that when we draft young men and compel them to go to Africa or Guadalcanal to fight and work and suffer endless days and nights, yet refuse to draft countless others, who are left at home, to perform the duties that must be performed, we are failing to equalize in any measure the burdens and sacrifices that all must bear in this war, and are, instead, establishing an unfair privilege of rights-the very essence of slavery."

Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger:

"The public attitude, we think, can be easily and accurately summarized. If a national labor draft is necessary, to maintain war production and food production, the sooner the necessity is faced and the legislation enacted the better." Norfolk (Va.) Virginian-Pilot:

"In the long run the country will probably require some such authority to make the greatest use of its manpower as the Austin-Wadsworth bill would provide. Meantime, there ought not to remain any doubt as whether the President and the Secretary of War see eye to eye."

Norfolk (Va.) Ledger-Dispatch:

"There can be no question that some solution of the manpower problem must be found without more delay."

New York Times:

"Certainly conscripting labor is a step to which any democracy must come reluctantly, and then only in defense of its very existence in the face of overwhelming danger. But the questions which cannot be avoided are whether this point has not been reached in 1943; whether the increasingly critical shortages of manpower in many places and in many industries can be solved successfully by wholly voluntary methods; whether, in this fight for our very lives, we can avoid the adoption of a measure to which other democracies have come, democracies like Britain and Australia, which are no less zealous than we are to protect individual rights and civil liberties. Clearly it must be said that this proposal, radical though it is in the experience of this country, rests upon a principle which cannot be rejected."

Camden (Ark.) News:

"On the compulsory manpower measure Mr. Stimson says one thing, Mr. McNutt another, and the President, to whom both would listen, remains silent, and that is anything but an aid to public thinking. So long as it is permitted to continue, the rank and file of Americans cannot be blamed for viewing official Washington as something a little bit on the 'balmy' side."

Pittsfield-Berkshire Eagle:

"The Government can force manufacturers to make what it wants; can seize their plants; can fix prices and then renegotiate to reduce them further; can absorb excess profits by taxation; can fix every element entering into labor costs; can give, withhold, and otherwise control materials, transportation facilities, manpower, and to some extent capital. There is no complaint about this conscription of capital, as a war measure. It is taken for granted, as is the drafting of men to do the actual fighting. Everybody and everything is conscripted, in modern war, except labor. Can labor expect to be exempt permanently?" Providence (R. I.) Journal:

"Even if we had what seemed like an excess of manpower, it would be of no avail unless it was properly distributed. Men must work where they are most needed in wartime. That is why the Wadsworth-Austin bill has real merit. Politicians generally shy away from anything that savors of labor conscription. But is it any worse to tell a man that he must work on a farm instead of a shipyard, or in a rubber factory rather than a bomber plant, or in a textile mill instead of on a newspaper than it is to tell a soldier that he cannot go to North Africa when he is needed in New Guinea? The Government, to be sure, would have to make certain that men in such circumstances were not exploited for private profit. But in total war the principle is valid that men must do what they can best do to win the war, nothing less."

Mr. BELL. May I also offer for the record the text of Mr. McNutt's last freeze order?

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

(The matter referred to is as follows:)

TEXT OF MCNUTT JOB-FREEZE ORDER

WASHINGTON, April 17 (AP)-The text of the order by Manpower Commissioner McNutt regulating the transfer of workers was as follows:

"Pursuant to the authority vested in me as chairman of the War Manpower Commission by Executive Order No. 9328, dated April 8, 1943, I hereby prescribe the following regulation:

"904.1. Workers previously engaged in other than essential activities for work in essential activities. Any employer engaged in an essential activity may hire for work in such activity any new employe who for the preceding thirty days was not engaged in an essential activity.

"904.2. Workers previously engaged in essential activities for work in other than essential activities. No employer shall hire for work in an activity other than an essential activity any new employe who, during the preceding thirty-day period, was engaged in an essential aitivity if the wage or salary rate to be paid by the employer would exceed the rate most recently earned by such employe.

"904.3. Workers previously engaged in essential activities for work in other essential activities. No employer shall hire (except as provided for in Section 904.4 of this regulation) for work in an essential activity any new employee who, during the preceding thirty-day period, was engaged in an essential activity if the salary or wage rate to be paid by the employer would exceed the rate most recently received during such period by the employe.

"904.4. Workers previously engaged in essential activities for work in other essential activities in areas or industries subject to War Manpower Commission employment stabilization programs. (A) Any employer engaged in an essential activity may hire for work in such activity any new employe who, during the preceding 30-day period, was engaged in an essential activity, without regard to his preceding wage rate or salary scale, provided such hiring is subject to, and permitted under an employment stabilization program approved by the War Manpower Commission.

"STATEMENT OF AVAILABILITY

"(B) A statement of availability shall be issued to any worker by his last employer or by the War Manpower Commission as may be provided in such employment stabilization programs and whenever the worker:

"(1) Is discharged by his last employer.

"(2) Is laid off for an indefinite period or for a period of 7 or more days, or "(3) Can establish that his present employment does not utilize him at his highest skill or that he is not being employed at full time.

"No statement of availability shall be issued solely on the ground that an individual's wage or salary rate is substantially less than that prevailing in the locality for the same or substantially similar work.

"Any such statement shall contain the worker's name, his Social Security account number, if any, the name and address of the issuing employer or War Manpower Commission officer and office, the date of issuance, and a statement to the effect that the worker may be hired elsewhere in an essential activity. The inclusion by an employer on such notice of any information other than that required by this regulation shall be deemed to be a violation of this regulation.

"904.5. Acceptance of employment by workers. No individual shall accept new employment with an employer if the employer is prohibited from hiring him under this regulation.

"PROVISION FOR PENALTIES

"904.6. Penalties. The hiring by an employer of a new employe, or the accep tance by an individual of new employment, in violation of this regulation is subject to the penal provisions of the act of Oct. 2, 1942 (Pub. No. 729, the 77th Cong.). The provisions of Sect. 4001.10 of the regulations of the Economic Stabilization Director, issued Oct. 27, 1942, apply to any wages or salaries paid in violation of this regulation.

"904.7. Definitions. (a) Essential activity means any activity in the War Manpower Commission list of essential activities (see Appendix A) and any activity approved by a regional manpower director as a locally needed activity.

"(b) New employe means any individual who has not been in the employ of the hiring employer at any time during the preceding thirty-day period.

"(c) New employment means employment with an employer by whom the individual has not been employed at any time during the thirty-day period preceding such employment.

"904.8. Employe-employer agreements. Nothing in this regulation shall be construed to prejudice existing rights of an employe under any agreement with his employer.

"904.9. Effective date. This regulation shall become effective at 12:01 A. M., Sunday, April 18, 1943."

Mr. BELL. I have, sir, a preliminary estimate, dated April 20, 1913, of the manpower requirements for December 1943, prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Division, dated April 20, 1943, which covers the entire manpower situation and shows that we will have to find this year outside of the present known labor market 3,900,000 workers. These would require the transfer, esti.mated, of about 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 workers, and would also require the reemployment of some 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 workers to take care of the turnover which is averaging per annum now about 50 percent. May it be printed in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; it may. (The table is as follows:)

Preliminary estimate of manpower requirements, December 1942, February 1943, and estimated December 1943

Prepared by Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Division, Apr. 20, 1943.

Mr. BELL. I have prepared here, sir, partially from the new book by John Carson entitled "Manpower," a summary of the manpower re