University of Virginia Library

Draft Program Favors Card Turn—In

By Mike Russell

Probably 200,000 men will be drafted
this year from a pool of more than
800,000. An estimated 3,000 men are
currently serving prison terms for refusal
of induction. Some sources indicate that
between 60 and 100 thousand Americans
are now living in Canadian exile. Senator
Edward Kennedy has recommended that
all deferments except CO's, ministerial
and hardship be eliminated during
wartime. (Definition of war is related to
kill ratio - not congressional
declaration.) The new lottery drafts 19
year olds first. Nineteen year olds cannot
vote.

These are some facts that draft age
men must live with. The lottery in actual
practice has proved different from its
theory. There is no secure number, no
guaranteed deferment, no positive
alternative to selective service.

Between 500,000 and 1,000,000
people gathered in Washington on the
15th of November. Had someone then
stated that the easiest and quickest way
to end the war in Vietnam was to end
conscription, and then proceeded to ask
all the men in the crowd to return their
cards and refuse further cooperation, in
six months the selective service people
would have had a difficult time finding
men to induct.

In fact, say the organizers of the
Charlottesville Draft Resistance, "so long
as the government can depend on the
draft age men acting like sheep with a
system which most do not support
intellectually, it can continue to fight
wars without the consent of the governed
or the legislators."

Charlottesville Draft Resistance (CDR)
was begun in the wake of New Mobe's
failure, believing that, with the anti-war
sentiment seemingly pervasive, a
resistance program might well find large
numerical support. The Resistance
decided to promote a program which
would, when successful, debilitate
Selective Service. Massive
non-cooperation has been tried before in
this country, but has never worked. At
other times, anti-war groups have called
for mass turn-ins which potential resistors
did not participate in because there was
no guarantee that anyone but themselves
would turn in their cards. These programs
failed because there was no indication for
the large numbers of people needed for
success, that large numbers would agree
to refuse cooperation.

The new resistance plan has the proper
elements to achieve success. Before any
cards are turned in, everyone involved
will know how many others are going to
act with them. The CDR has printed
102,000 pledge cards while
tate in
essence that when 100,000 men have
signed these pledges "I will refuse further
cooperation" with the draft and any
future form of military conscription. No
cards will be returned until the 100,000
pledges are collected. The individual's
liability for prosecution will not be with
10 others or 100 others but with 100,000
other draft-disgusted men. This number
also lessens the probability that many of
those men will be prosecuted although
the chance is never eliminated.

Members of the Charlottesville Draft
Resistance have been told that there is
little or no chance of this plan
succeeding, that the sentiments of the
anti-war segments do not include the
elements of commitment needed for
non-cooperation. These doubters are
organizing small turn-ins and individual
non-cooperation, which the CDR
endorsed. But the Charlottesville
Resistance does believe that nationally
there are 100,000 men who are disgusted
enough with selective service to at last
sign a pledge indicating their willingness
to resist, and actually refuse cooperation
once the pledges are collected.

Their plan is just beginning to get off
the ground. Some University students
began to spread information concerning
the plan over the Christmas and semester
breaks. A number of contacts have been
made throughout the country, from
Florida to Connecticut, from Virginia to
Colorado, to be successful, however,
manpower is presently needed to aid in
the distribution of the cards, to help in
the public of the plan, and to find
resources for paying the debts which
accrue to any organization planning
national activity.

Tuesday evening at 8 p.m. in
Newcomb Hall Room C, the second
organizational meeting will be held to
gather information collected by those
who traveled during the past two
months, and to discuss distribution and
publicity plans. The Charlottesville Draft
Resistance encourages anyone who now
opposes the draft to attend this meeting
and aid in the plan to end conscription.