University of Virginia Library

Students And The Draft

General Hershey's Error . . .

It is becoming increasingly obvious that
Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey
is unfit to supervise the agency that has
authority of a life-and-death nature, to some
extent, over a generation of Americans. The
74-year-old general, who has run the
Selective Service since 1941, would serve
his nation best at this point by retiring to
Florida and playing golf.

The latest example of General Hershey's
misinterpretation of his duties, of course,
was his recommendation to local draft
boards that they remove exemptions of
students involved in anti-draft demonstrations.
The general's view of the Selective
Service System as a punitive institution,
with himself as judge and jury, sparked
a blaze on controversy in Congress and
across the country.

General Hershey defended his view in
a letter to one of his most caustic critics,
Rep. John E. Moss, D-Calif., by explaining
that he relied on such a Congressional
mandate as recent statements by L. Mendel
Rivers, D-S. C. and chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee. Mr.
Moss fired back: "I am sure you learned
long ago that a statement by a member
of Congress, regardless of his position,
long after the enactment is not and cannot
be a binding interpretation." He also accused
the general of using "Selective Service
System machinery to blackmail college students
and others into 'conforming.' "

It appears that General Hershey has
much to learn about guarantees of due
process and about the principle of military
conscription as understood in the
United States. Since it is unlikely that a
74-year-old dog will learn such new tricks,
the general should have the decency to turn
his duties over to a younger man.