University of Virginia Library

Frenzy And Chaos

How well, or poorly, is the SS
system presently operating? Nationally
the system is somewhere between
a state of frenzy and one of
chaos as groups and individuals
increase their pressure on it.

Any man who decides that he
doesn't want to be drafted has a
number of avenues open to him-all
of which add to the ultimate breakdown
of the system. Conscientious
Objector Status is generally up for
gab-the criteria are so ambiguous
that many boards don't understand
how to apply the recent rulings;
many others simply refuse to. If
(that is with a potential
court case) boards will often grant
C.O. status rather than litigate. Every
registrant with enough investigation,
can find sufficient procedural
error in the handling of his case
to prevent his induction, tie up the
board with paperwork, and potentially
k out another classification
(this is especially true in poor areas
where clerks are notably negligent
in obeying the SS act). Finally
collective counseling and resistance
efforts are confusing many communities'
boards and jamming judicial
structures.

These efforts have created the
following conditions in the SS bureaucracy.
Most major cities' boards
are closing to the public one, two,
or three days a week to catch up on
back paperwork; shortening the office
hours is, however, increasing
the paperwork and the likelihood of
procedural error. Technical and
procedural challenges are causing
boards to stop all activity to purge
their commonplace-and illegal-procedures.
(Witness the Minnesota
and Federal District Court
which reversed 55 indictments for
induction refusal because the State
Appeals Board was spending an
average of 49 seconds per case and
basing their decision on summaries
of men's files. The court ruled this
denial of due process, thus illegitimatizing
a common practice of all
State Boards.)