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The Peacetime Draft Comes to America

© Earl Rickard

On May 8, 1940, a small group of middle-aged men representing the Executive Committee of the Second Corps Area, Military Training Camps Association(MTCA) met in New York City to plan their organization's 25th anniversary. In May, 1915, these men and their comrades formed the MTCA in response to the loss of American lives when a German U-boat sank Britain's passenger liner Lusitania. Believing in military preparedness, the young Manhattan businessmen of 1915 spent most of August training under army officers at Plattsburg New York. The United States avoided World War I for another two years, but the idea of preparedness spread throughout the country and eventually 27,000 MTCA men earned commissions in the United States Army before and during World War I.

By 1940, the young men of 1915 had become not only middle-aged, but also influential. Once again they worried about their nation when a new war erupted in Europe. The executive committee, including New York lawyer Granville Clark (known as America's "statesman incognito") and Adolph Ochs Adler, general manager and vice-president of the New York Times, believed in the necessity of a military draft to strengthen America's defenses. The executive committee voted to ask their membership to urge Congress to enact selective service legislation.

On September 8, 1939, in response to the outbreak of war in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 2352 -- a state of national emergency. The president knew he was limited in his efforts to rearm America. Some Americans, remembering the bitter pill of the first world war, wanted no part of a second world war; other Americans believed their nation must prepare to defend itself against totalitarian dictators. Congress reflected this split.

Aware of the United States Army's pathetic condition, Roosevelt authorized an increase in the Regular Army that would have to come from voluntary enlistments because the political climate of 1939 precluded asking Congress for a first-ever peacetime draft. To increase the army's normal monthly enlistments from 8,000 to 90,000, the War Department created the Civilian Volunteer Effort(CVE); it failed miserably.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the German's summer blitzkrieg of Poland was replaced by the winter "sitzkrieg" along France's Maginot Line. But then, on May 10, 1940, the quiet of the western front exploded when Hitler's panzer divisions raced through the neutral Low Countries -- Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg -- out flanking the Maginot Line. Reacting quickly, President Roosevelt went to Capitol Hill and asked Congress for $1.1 billion in supplemental defense funds. On this score the president had the backing of popular opinion: In a Gallup Poll taken in mid-May, eighty-five percent of Americans polled believed the armed services were not strong enough to protect the United States from attack and ninety percent wanted to increase the size of the armed forces. Nevertheless, the question: "Should the United States require every able-bodied young man 20 years old to serve in the army, navy or the air forces for one year?" revealed that half of the Americans polled were in favor, and half were opposed.