Selective Service Act

“ Senator Russell, who was manager of the bill as well as Chairman of the Senate Immigration Committee, explained it in similar terms:
'Certainly those who, having enjoyed the advantages of living in the United States, were unwilling to serve their country or subject themselves to the Selective Service Act, should be penalized in some measure. * * * Any American citizen who is convicted of violating the Selective Service Act loses his citizenship. ”

“ TERMINATING REGISTRATION PROCEDURES UNDER THE MILITARY SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT, AS AMENDED
Under authority vested in the President by the Military Selective Service Act (62 Stat. 604) , as amended, procedures have been established for the registration of male citizens of the United States and of other male persons who are subject to registration under section 3 of said act, as amended (85 Stat. 348) .
In order to evaluate an annual registration system, existing procedures are being terminated and will be replaced by new procedures which will provide for periodic registration. ”

“ It may be that it will be most useful both to young men of draft age and to other readers if we concentrate largely on the quite concrete problem of whether the former should register, conform to other requirements of the Selective Service Act which apply to conscientious objectors and accept or submit to the alternative service required of them under the law as amended in June, 1951 ”

“ The relation between the Selective Service Act and the regulation forbidding representation by counsel before local boards is wholly different from the situation in Mersky. The regulation is not at all 'called for by the statute itself,' 361 U.S., at 438, 80 S.Ct., at 463. Indeed, so independent are the statute and the regulation that it would be entirely possible for a regulation covering the same subject matter to provide exactly the reverse of what the present regulation requires. ”

“ Is it reasonable to believe that Congress, bent on creating a vast armed force as quickly as possible, would in effect authorize every order of the Selective Service System to be reconsidered upon trials for disregard of such orders? The Act does not differentiate between the power of the board to allow exemptions and its power to grant deferments. ”

“ The record of National Guard enlistments has not yet been completely compiled, [302] but the act authorizing a temporary increase in the military establishment provided that any deficiency remaining in either the Regular Army or the National Guard should be made up by selective conscription. The introduction of this new method of enlistment so far affected the whole question of selection for military service that any deductions, either favorable or unfavorable, from the number of voluntary enlistments, would be unwarranted. ”

“ The public policy and fairness inherent in crediting employees with time spent in military service in time of war or national emergency is so clear that Congress, in the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, required some credit to be given for it in computing seniority both in governmental and in private employment. ”

“ Presumably under the majority's theory that 'continuing duties' can only be created by express provision in the statute, this decision is overruled, and the continuing duty imposed by this regulation is brushed aside-all in the face of a statute that Congress knew 'wouldn't be worth a dime to us in 2 years' if registration information and lists were not 'kept up to date.' Hearings on S. 2126 before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., 37, 38 (1941) .↑ In the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, enacted June 30, 1967, 81 Stat. ”

“ The present system does not secure the best men, and often not even fit men, for public place. The elevation and purification of the civil service of the Government will be hailed with approval by the whole people of the United States. Congress accordingly passed the act approved March 3, 1871, "to regulate the civil service of the United States and promote the efficiency thereof," giving the necessary authority to the Executive to inaugurate a civil-service reform. ”

“ A further obstacle to the complete success of the merit system, and one which prevents the carrying forward of the reform to the extent to which it has been carried in Great Britain, is inherent in the Civil Service Act itself. All postmasters who receive compensation of $1000 or more per annum, and all collectors of customs and collectors of internal revenue, are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and are therefore, by express provision of the act, not “required to be classified.” ”

“ But these sections do not contemplate the retention in office of a clerk who is inefficient, nor attempt to transfer the power of determining the question of efficiency from the heads of departments to the courts. The proviso in section 3 of the act of August 15, 1876, expressly limits the preference to those 'equally qualified.'
No thoughtful person questions the obligations which the nation is under to those who have done faithful service in its army or navy. ”

“ In the summer of 1918 an extension of the age limit was authorized by Congress, to include all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; but it did not prove necessary to call into service any considerable number of men from among these later registrants. The classification of the men, the physical examinations, and the order in which men were called to the colors were all provided for in the body of rules known as the Selective Service Regulations. ”

“ But this was to be accomplished consistently with the declaration of the act 'that no officer now in the service shall be reduced in rank or deprived of his commission by reason of any provision of this act reducing the number of officers in the several staff corps.' And to this end the whole scheme of reform embodied in the legislation was made prospective. ”

“ No man shall be 'inducted for training and service under this Act unless and until he is acceptable' to the armed services. § 3 (a) . And the civil authorities retain jurisdiction over him until he is 'actually inducted'. § 11. Thus it seems clear, as we have already said, that the Act, rather than the War Department Regulations or the Articles of War, determines the rights and duties of selectees, as distinguished from inducted men. The manner and method of effecting an induction into the Army are thus left for the War Department. ”

“ But we, you and I, and many of those here present, who have the experience of public life, know but too well that, even if the head of a public department does possess that knowledge, he will, so long as he is exposed to political pressure, not be left free to act upon it. We know but too well that this independent and enlightened discretion of the appointing officer to be freely exercised for the good of the service is a myth. ”

“ It is equally true that no government can exist without a right to appoint officers for those purposes which proceed from and concentre in itself; and therefore the Confederation has expressly declared that Congress shall have authority to appoint all such 'civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction.' All that can be required is, that the federal government confine its appointments to such as it is empowered to make by the original act of union, or by the subsequent consent of the parties. ”