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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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1994-02-27
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<text>
<title>
(1940s) The Draft & Lend-Lease
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1940s Highlights
</history>
<link 08172>
<link 00074><link 00077><link 00081><article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
The Draft & Lend-Lease
</hdr>
<body>
<p> [Italy had joined the Axis in June 1940, Japan in September.
Japan was not yet ready to make war outside China, where large-
scale fighting had been going on, with widespread devastation,
since 1937. Italy, however, decided to try. In the fall of
1940, its forces went on the offensive in North Africa and the
Balkans, with results that were not laughable, because men
fought and died, but were certainly unavailing. The British
swept into Italian-occupied Libya; the Greeks valiantly
defended the border passes from Albania and began pushing the
Italians back.
</p>
<p> The U.S. began, slowly, sluggishly, to throw off the inertia
of eight years of depression and mobilize. Greater, faster,
more efficient production was going to be needed to build up
American defenses and bolster Britain. As the second year of the
war began, the U.S. took two giant steps toward a war footing;
a peace-time draft and lend-lease.]
</p>
<p>(September 23, 1940)
</p>
<p> Last week Congress passed the conscription bill. This week
the President sighed it. A new thing had entered U.S. life:
although the U.S. had conscripted its citizens in two wars,
never before had it conscripted them in peace. Some 16,500.000
men, aged 21 to 36, forthwith became liable to compulsory
military service. How, when, whether conscription would actually
touch them was prescribed in 1) the bill, and 2) the selective
system which the Army & Navy had long since prepared against a
martial day.
</p>
<p> The Bill laid down the general philosophy, rules, scope of
conscription:
</p>
<p> No more than 900,000 conscripts can be called in any one year
(the Army plans to call 800,000 a year). They will be kept in
training for one year, will then enter an enlisted reserve
where they will be subject to recall for emergency service for
ten years or until they are 45. They will not be subject to
periodic recalls for further training. But if Congress finds the
nation in peril before their initial year's service ends, they
can be held under arms indefinitely.
</p>
<p>(October 28, 1940)
</p>
<p> Last week, in the 14 hours between 7.a.m. and 9 p.m. of Oct.
16, the U.S. put its man power and its democracy to a test. Both
passed, with honors. Some 17,000,000 free men, aged 21 to 35,
did what they had been told to do: register for the draft. They
went to appointed places. They stood in line. They answered the
questions. They signed small, imperious cards. They buried a
tradition: that the U.S., in peace, never requires its men to
take up arms.
</p>
<p> All this they did with precision, discipline, dignity, good
humor. It was a day for men who obeyed a law, yet knew well
enough that in all the U. S. there were not enough soldiers,
policemen, judges, prison wardens to compel their obedience.
</p>
<p>(November 11, 1940)
</p>
<p> Secretary of War Henry Lewis Stimson, 73, stepped to the jar.
Stimson gingerly put his left hand in the jar, took the first
capsule he touched, handed it to Mr. Roosevelt. The President,
old stager that he was, glanced at the newsreel and radio men,
got their nod before he intoned: "The first number is
one-five-eight." Registration serial number 158, held by some
6,175 registrants throughout the U.S., thus became Draft Order
No. I.
</p>
<p> Then Brigadier General Hershey's crew took over, finished the
job. It took them until 5:48 a.m. next day. Out over the U.S.,
by radio and news ticker, the number flowed, establishing the
"national master list," which along with personal and local
circumstances would deter-mine the order in which 17,000,000
men, aged 21 to 35, might be called for a year of Army training.
</p>
<p>(January 20, 1941)
</p>
<p> The President's lend-lease plan was introduced as Bill No.
1776, entitled "A Bill to Further Promote the Defense of the
United States, and For Other Purposes."
</p>
<p> No bill like it had ever been introduced. Under the bill,
powers would go to Franklin Roosevelt such as no American has
ever before even asked for.
</p>
<p> Many who had applauded the President's speeches to the nation
and to Congress as high and noble words were shocked as they saw
his translation of those words into harsh legislative reality.
</p>
<p> The bill described defense articles as: any weapon, munition,
aircraft, vessel or boat; any machinery for the production,
processing, repair, servicing or operation of any article. The
next section authorized the President to order any Government
official to manufacture in arsenals, shipyards, factories, or
procure in any way any defense article for the use of any
country the President names. To cover expenses, a blank-check
appropriation is authorized, out of any unappropriated moneys
in the Treasury, sufficient to carry out the President's orders.
The President may buy any defense article, etc. from any
country. Finally, Mr. Roosevelt may make such orders as he deems
necessary to carry out any part of the act.
</p>
<p> [President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill in March
1941--just in time. Nazi U-boats were taking a terrible toll
on Atlantic convoys, and Britain was teetering on the brink of
defeat.]
</p>
<p>(March 31, 1941)
</p>
<p> By week's end came a frightening announcement: over a period
of 48 hours the exultant German High Command issued claims of
having sunk 224,000 tons of British shipping, left the world to
speculate on how long the job had taken. Moreover, Britain
shipping losses were already running at a ruinous 350,000 tons
a month, and rumor in London had reported that 600 new
submarines would take to the sea lanes with spring.
</p>
<p> There was no denying that against the destructive virtuosity
of surface raiders, of Nazi airmen and of seamen lying in the
chill, sweating bowels of the U-boats, the British convoy system
was far from effective. The great danger was that, with better
weather, it would become even less effective. In the tragic,
high-hearted history of Britain's first 18 months of war was the
admitted record of at least 4,300,000 gross tons of shipping
lost at sea. This as a net loss (after replacements) of some
2,650,000 tons. less than 18,000,000 tons were left to haul the
war-swollen traffic of an empire.
</p>
<p> Against a probable loss of 3,500,000 to 5,500,000 tons in
1941, Britain could expect no more than 2,100,000 in
replacements from U.S. and British yards.</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>