University of Virginia Library

Courts Overloaded

Court cases dealing with SS are
backing up most Federal Courts to
the point where they cannot deal
with the caseload. SS is short of
staff by some 200 people (some
board members, some clerical)-they
can't replace them because
the job is so unpleasant, and
they can't operate efficiently without
them.

Finally and perhaps most significant
is the limitation of draft calls
to 163,000 and the lottery ceiling
of 195. This decision (and the State
Department decision to fight future
Vietnams with National Guard and
Reservists) is partly due to the
efforts of the Resistance-Counseling
groups; SS couldn't find enough
men to draft and couldn't go into
the high lottery numbers without
losing public support. This manpower
drain exists because 10 percent
of the men called refuse induction,
because I-Y and IV-F claims
are up 40 per cent in the last year,
and because C.O. applicants have
increased 186 per cent in the last
year. Some rural boards are drafting
beyond 195, but in a test case, Tarr
and the Army have ordered the
discharge of men thus inducted.

With these conditions extant, it
is important that we all gear our
efforts to destroy SS before the
legislators repeal it. Why? Simply
because there are rumors of Compulsory
National Service, and the
citizens of this country must demonstrate
to the government that
compulsory service will not be tolerated,
and if instituted, will be
resisted. Together, citizens in local
communities can add to the pressure,
cited above, which is being
levied by local resistance-counseling-repeal
groups. Generally it is
only necessary to learn the procedures
of local boards and challenge
them, point by point, in the
courts and in the streets - always
stressing the alien nature of compulsory
service and the failure of
the present SS system to even
operate according to the laws which
initiated and defined its powers,
depending instead on the fear and
ignorance of the registrants.