SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER 261 



deferment, however, as the actual time of call fluctuated with the rate at 

 which reserve officers were needed. 



A number of reserve officers were deferred for NDRC work prior to 

 the entry of the United States into the war. After that, deferment was 

 extremely difficult to obtain. The matter, which was of much more impor- 

 tance to industries engaged in production of military equipment than to 

 NDRC, was finally solved by the decision of the War Department to con- 

 sider all reserve officers available for call to active military service on and 

 after April i, 1942. This decision was communicated to reserve officers 

 in February 1942, with the information that those employed in key posi- 

 tions in which their continued services beyond March 31, 1942, were 

 deemed necessary to the maintenance of national health, safety or interest 

 might before that date tender resignation of their reserve appointments. 

 The Department reserved the right to decline any resignation so tendered 

 as a matter of military necessity. Reserve officers whose resignations were 

 accepted became subject to the provisions of the Selective Service Act in 

 the same manner as other citizens. 



The situation with respect to reserve commissions in the Navy was a little 

 dififerent from that in the Army. The Navy made no provision for a reserve 

 pool comparable to that of the Army. In the spring of 1941 it took the 

 position that reserve officers should in most cases accept a call to active 

 duty or submit their resignations as reserve officers with the understanding 

 that the Navy retained complete liberty to determine whether the resig- 

 nation should be accepted. There was provision for deferment, however, 

 and a number of deferments were granted. After the attack on Pearl Har- 

 bor, however, there was little chance of either deferment or acceptance 

 of resignation except in the case of older reserve officers who would prob- 

 ably be used by the Navy only in a consultant capacity not requiring the 

 usual call to active duty. 



Problems of Selective Service 



Ideally a war should be fought with every man in the position where 

 he will make the greatest contribution to the over-all war effort. The ideal 

 is impossible of attainment in any large country. In its place there is a 

 tendency to substitute general rules, and the most general of those rules 

 is that every able-bodied young man should be in the armed services. But 

 the general rule is recognized as too sweeping and administrative machin- 

 ery is established to permit exceptions from it in cases dictated by public 

 interest. Blanket exceptions from the application of the general rule in 

 the case of activities recognized as essential had led to abuses in World 

 War I, so blanket exceptions were not permitted in World War II. 



This is not the place for a review of the operations of the Selective Serv- 



