Selective Service System

“ III) . The Act amends and supersedes the Universal Military Training and Service Act.↑ 113 Cong.Rec. 15426 (1967) (Senator Russell) .↑ See § 10 (a) (2) of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 893:↑ See Townsend v. Zimmerman, 6 Cir., 237 F.2d 376; Schwartz v. Strauss, 2 Cir., 206 F.2d 767 (concurring opinion) ”

“ 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 ”

“ Nothing can be more self evident to any man of experience than that, as the Civil Service Commission expresses it, “It is to the competitive system, which has so greatly improved the other parts of the service, that we must look for the permanent betterment of the consular branch.” ”

“ Civil service reformers are well aware that while the competitive merit system furnishes, on the whole, a public service vastly superior to that furnished by the spoils system, it may occasionally fail to present for appointment the fittest man for the place to be filled, especially when experience or other particular qualifications are required, and that a strict application of the civil service rules may now and then work a grievance, on individuals, exciting the sympathy of the appointing power. ”

“ I am satisfied that both in and out of the classified service great benefit would accrue from the adoption of some system by which the officer would receive the distinction and benefit that in all private employments comes from exceptional faithfulness and efficiency in the performance of duty. ”

“ The Selective Service Act is a comprehensive statute designed to provide orderly, efficient and fair procedure for marshalling available manpower of country and to impose a common obligation of military service on all physically fit young men ”

“ More lasting than finance as a political issue but less enduring than the tariff, was the reform of the civil service. In its widest sense, the term civil service included all non-military government officers from cabinet officials and supreme court judges to the humblest employee in the postal or naval service. The reform, however, was directed mainly toward the appointment and tenure of the lower officers. Before the Civil War the "spoils system" had been in full swing ”

“ The military departments shall, with the approval of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower) , issue appropriate instructions, manuals and regulations in connection with the leadership responsibility for equal opportunity, on and off base, and containing guidance for its discharge.
2. The military departments shall institute in each service a system for regularly reporting, monitoring and measuring progress in achieving equal opportunity on and off base. ”

“ He presented a strong argument in favor of civil-service reform, pointed out the successful trial of the competitive system in the interior department, the post-office department, and the post-office and custom-house in New York, and once more earnestly urged that an appropriation be made for the civil-service commission, and that all persons in the public service be protected by law against assessments for party ends. ”

“ Thorough civil service reform requires that these positions also, and all those of fourth-class postmasters (partly classified by order of 1st Dec. 1908) , be made subject to the merit system, for in them is the real remaining stronghold of the spoils system. Even though all their subordinates be appointed through examination, it will be impossible to carry the reform to ultimate and complete success so long as the officers in charge are appointed mainly for political reasons and are changed with every change of administration. ”

“ Until men of more ability are attracted by the examinations that give entrance to the civil service, the system of mechanical promotion cannot be extended up through the service to positions requiring executive power and independent judgment ”

“ The civil service law is an attempt to solve the problem of the proper selection of those who enter the service. A better system under that law for promotions ought to be devised, but, given the selected employee, there remains still the question of promoting his efficiency and his usefulness to the Government, and that can be brought about only by a careful comparison of unit work done by the individual and a pointing out of the necessity for improvement in this regard where improvement is possible. ”

“ The selective draft enabled the selection for service in the army of those who could be most readily spared from the pursuit of other industries and occupations. There being a universal obligation to serve in time of war, the Administration felt the need of being empowered to select men for military service and select others to do the rest of the nation's work, either by keeping them in their existing employment, if that employment was useful for war purposes, or utilizing their services in a like field. ”

“ During the middle of the century, when the American rotated in other professions, it was natural that he should rotate in office, and rotation and the spoils system probably secured, in most parts of the country, a better corps of civil servants than the present system would have done. To-day our general mode of life is more stable, and it is therefore natural that the government service should become more so; the class that is willing to settle down permanently to the prospect of a small but steady income, and a respectable but not distinguished station, is increasing. ”

“ How can we develop our civil service commissions into genuine recruiting agencies capable of supplying the Government with exactly the type of service needed for any given movement and of maintaining a loyal and efficient personnel? ”

“ Unlike the Military and Naval, the Medical, and the Commissariat Services, and unlike even the Indian Civil Service, the public establishments of this country, though comprising a body of not less than 16,000 persons, are regulated upon the principle of merely departmental promotion. Each man’s experience, interests, hopes, and fears are limited to the special branch of service in which he is himself engaged. ”

“ It is not contended, however, that Competition would altogether prevent the entrance of unfit persons into the service. Some such persons must be expected to find admittance under any system. It is merit enough to claim for the plan of Competition that, while increasing the number and the efficiency of meritorious officers, it would both diminish the number and facilitate the removal of the incapable and ill-conducted. The remedy for the unavoidable admission of unsuitable persons is to be found in subsequent official discipline. ”

“ The same officers, together with the rest of the new organization, are able at all times to give to American citizens accurate information as to conditions in foreign countries with which they have business and likewise to cooperate more effectively with the Congress and also with the other executive departments.
MERIT SYSTEM IN CONSULAR AND DIPLOMATIC CORPS
Expert knowledge and professional training must evidently be the essence of this reorganization. Without a trained foreign service there would not be men available for the work in the reorganized Department of State. ”

“ The classified service, the service in which the merit system is applied, has grown fast. It is true that the outside service where the spoils theories are still applied in all their original nakedness, has grown only less fast. ”

“ In conferences with Selective Service officials efforts are being made to avoid some of the features of the war-time Civilian Public Service set-up which deeply troubled a good many Friends—such as the close supervision by military men allegedly functioning as civilians and the undesirable and frustrating character of much of the work to which IV-E men were assigned. Even if substantial concessions are obtained, it will be well for us to be on guard against idealizing the situation. ”

“ I submit, therefore, to your consideration whether the efficiency of the government would not be promoted, and official industry and integrity better secured, by a general extension of the law which limits appointments to four years.
“In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another. Offices were not established to give support to particular men at the public expense. No individual wrong is, therefore, done by removal, since neither appointment to nor continuance in office is matter of right. ”

“ There is no teaching of history and no process of reasoning that will not unfailingly lead us to the conclusion that the element of favoritism and of spoils politics can be excluded from the public service at large only by the establishment and maintenance of competitive tests to which every qualified person has free access, and which secure to the best merit properly demonstrated the best title to appointment.
The competitive principle, I repeat, is the very soul of civil service reform. Without it there can be no true merit system on a large scale. ”

“ Acting under this statute, which was interpreted as intended to secure a system of just and effectual examinations under uniform supervision, a number of eminently competent persons were selected for the purpose, who entered with zeal upon the discharge of their duties, prepared with an intelligent appreciation of the requirements of the service the regulations contemplated, and took charge of the examinations, and who in their capacity as a board have been known as the "Civil Service Commission." ”

“ It is why I issued an Executive Order that directed all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government to embark upon a revolution to change the way they do business and establish and implement customer service standards that match or exceed the best in the private sector. And it is why our policies continue to emphasize the paramount importance of service excellence to the success of our Nation, our economy, and our efforts to compete in the global marketplace. ”

“ How can we educate the public up to an appreciation of the necessity for trained and expert service in every branch of the Government? How can we order our public service so that it will attract the ablest men and women and guarantee progressive careers to those who prove loyal and efficient? ”

“ We shall, above all things, avoid every device, aye, we shall as honest men spurn every thought of a scheme, that would strike at the fundamental principle, the essential requisite of the competitive system contemplated by the constitution—the principle that the management of the examinations and the making of the ratings shall in no wise be under the control or influence of the appointing officers. ”

“ As special directions, adapted to special circumstances, cannot be given, much must be referred to your own discretion as Commanding General of the Expedition. You will, however, in general avail yourself of the services of any Persons, whether Fugitives from Labor or not, who may offer them to the National Government; you will employ such Persons in such services as they may be fitted for, either as ordinary employees, or, if special circumstances seem to require it, in any other capacity with such organization, in squads, companies, or otherwise, as you deem most beneficial to the service. ”

“ The genius of the American Postal System is found in the harmonious cooperation of its several parts, in direction and in operation; wise policy and purpose as seen in the formulation of plans, with willing assistance in operation to render such plans effective. The Postmaster General directs the policy, the bureau heads execute what is determined upon and the benefit or failure is seen in practical administration. All alike share in achievement, the mind that conceives, the heads that direct, and the force upon whose faithful and intelligent effort the outcome depends. ”

“ The competitive examinations prescribed by the constitution are, therefore, beyond question, in every essential point such as were provided for by the civil service law at the time when the constitution was adopted—that is to say, in point of fact, what true competitive examinations were universally understood to be wherever a civil service system like ours was in practice. ”

“ In other Departments a very gratifying progress is to be observed—notably in the Indian-school service of the Interior Department, whose superintendent, Mr. Hailmann, has recognized in the Civil Service Law the best friend of his endeavors; in the Agricultural Department under Secretary Morton, where the Civil Service Reform spirit has made perceptible advances; in the Navy Department, where Secretary Herbert, without being bound by the Civil Service Law, has faithfully maintained the non-partisan labor system introduced by his predecessor Mr. ”

“ The upshot of all this is, that as soon as we assume the performance of a certain service to be necessary for the public convenience, and that those who undertake that service are in duty to the public bound not to cause or to permit that service to be interrupted, we must admit at the same time that the public becomes in duty bound to afford them a corresponding measure of protection in the performance of that service. ”

“ There is good reason for believing that the necessities of the consular service have already engaged his care; and whoever undertakes seriously the task of putting that, as well as any other, branch of the government service upon a footing of thorough efficiency, will soon recognize that the first requirement is its absolute emancipation from the influence of the patronage mongers.
There is a force working for civil service reform which is now far more effective than ever before. ”