Franklin D. Roosevelt

Message to Congress Defending Federal Employees Against Charges of Draft Dodging.

October 26, 1943

THERE has recently been much loose and harmful talk about the employees of the Federal Government. In an effort to discredit those in the public service, groundless charges are being made and irresponsible rumors circulated that the Federal Government is a haven for "draft dodgers" and "slackers."

In simple justice to the many fine, public-spirited, and devoted persons in the Government employ, these unfair accusations must be emphatically denied.

Here are the true facts concerning the draft deferment of Government employees. I am sending them to you so that they may be made a part of the permanent record.

On July 31, 1943 (the latest date for which complete figures are available), there were in the Government service 2,825,904 full-time employees—men and women—in the continental United States—less than 9 percent of whom work in Washington. According to the latest available information, it is estimated that there were 154,500 additional civilian employees outside the continental United States, the greater part of whom were working for the War and Navy Departments or for the Panama Canal.

In addition, there were 145,808 part-time paid employees, such as consultants, specialists, and forest-fire fighters. And 251,663 persons were working without compensation or for one dollar a year, such as members of local ration and draft boards and industrial advisers. It has been the Government's policy not to seek deferments for part-time or uncompensated employees or for dollar-a-year men. We can thus at the outset dispose of about 400,000 persons who under no circumstances can be regarded as "draft dodgers."

Of the 2,825,904 full-time, paid civilian employees in the United States, 1,952,700 men and women, or more than two thirds, are employed by the War and Navy Departments. Let us consider first these civilian employees of the War and Navy Departments.

The greater part of them are engaged in war production in Government arsenals, ordnance plants, powder factories, and navy yards, or in essential work at Government depots, warehouses, proving grounds, air bases, naval training stations, and Government hospitals. They consist of engineers, draftsmen, mechanics, skilled artisans, procurement experts, scientists, specialists, and administrative personnel. They perform many difficult and important functions with regard to the far-flung supply, production, and other problems of the Army and Navy.

If the items of war material now being made in these Government-owned plants were produced, instead, in civilian-owned plants, the working men and women would be the very same civilians-and in the same number. And they would be deferred as essential war workers the same as other essential war workers are deferred.

Those who constantly bemoan the rapid growth of Government payrolls usually overlook the fact that it takes hundreds of thousands of men and women to produce guns and ammunition in Government arsenals and to construct and repair battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines in Government navy yards, the same as in privately owned and operated plants. One hundred percent of the battleships now in construction, 43 percent of the aircraft carriers, 10 percent of the cruisers, 8 percent of the destroyers, and about 31 percent of the submarines are being built in these Government yards. Our civilian workers make 86 percent of the Garand rifles built in this country. These are just a few examples.

The War and Navy Departments, like private manufacturers, must see to it that production is not disrupted by the drafting of their workers before systematic arrangements for their replacement are made. Accordingly, replacement schedules, similar to those used in private war plants and factories, have been prepared for most Army and Navy civilian workers. Deferments for such workers in these departments operate on the same basis as in private industry; viz., the deferment lasts for a limited period of time, during which new people—women or older men or younger boys—are trained to take the place of those who are inducted into the Army or Navy—except those who are indispensable and irreplaceable. These replacement schedules have to be approved by the Selective Service System before they become effective.

The vast majority of these 1,952,700 civilian employees of the War and Navy Departments consist of women, men below or over draft age, men who have been classified as physically unfit, and fathers. According to the records of Selective Service, less than 5 percent of all of the civilian employees in these departments-or about 84,000—have been deferred for occupational reasons. Men of draft age are constantly being released for military duty and are being replaced in accordance with replacement schedules. This record is much better than the occupational deferments in private industry.

Those civilians in the Army and Navy who have been de[erred are preponderantly workers in the field outside of Washington. Thus, of the 36,672 departmental employees of the War Department in Washington, 364 are now deferred. Of the 19,000 departmental employees of the Navy in Washington, only 1,016 are now deferred. Those deferred are primarily engineers, draftsmen, naval architects, and other technical personnel.

If the "slackers" are not harbored by the War and Navy Departments, have they found their "haven'" in the other Government departments and agencies?

No employee in the other Government departments and agencies is allowed to request his own deferment from his local draft board. No local draft board is allowed to defer any Government employee on occupational grounds unless the deferment has been requested by the employing agency and has received the approval of an independent Review Committee on Deferment of Government Employees consisting of three public officials and organized by Executive Order.

Deferment will be approved by this Review Committee only in the case of Government employees who occupy key positions, or who are engaged in highly specialized and essential work or who possess unique fitness and skill which are difficult to replace. The concept of a key position is narrowly limited to positions requiring an unusual degree of responsibility and specialized skill, and involving serious difficulty of replacement.

It is clear, therefore, that the standards of deferment of Government workers are much stricter than those governing deferments in private employment. A worker in private industry, unlike the Government employee, may request his own deferment, even though his employer does not see fit to do so. There is no agency in private industry comparable to this Review Committee of the Government which passes upon job classifications and carefully scrutinizes claims for deferment of workers. Nor, in private industry, is deferment limited to employees who hold key positions. Finally, the fact that the worker is engaged in any of the 2,000 occupations classified as essential by the War Manpower Commission may properly be considered by the local draft boards in the case of private workers; but, despite the fact that Government service has been classified as an essential activity, the local draft boards cannot defer a man in Government service, not on a replacement schedule, except in accordance with the foregoing rules. The Government, moreover, is handicapped by the fact that, due to budgetary limitations, it cannot always take on and train new employees to replace men who are about to be inducted.

I am informed that some local boards, on their own initiative, have granted occupational deferments to some Government employees without any prior request of the Government. Many of these deferments were obtained before the Executive Order establishing the Review Committee was issued. These deferments are now unauthorized. We are actively searching out such cases and when they are discovered, appropriate action is being taken.

The figures compiled by the Review Committee reflect the strictness of the Government's policy on occupational deferments.

The Post Office Department is the largest employer in the Government after the War and Navy Departments. It has 315,741 employees, of whom 307,817 are located outside of Washington. These are the men who deliver the mail and operate local post offices. No deferments have been sought by the postal authorities for any employees with the single exception of postal inspectors. These inspectors are engaged in highly skilled work requiring years of experience. They investigate postal frauds, check the accounts of the local postmasters, and do important work for the Army and Navy. Only 61 men—all of them postal inspectors—have received deferments. Twelve of these 61 are fathers. The number deferred is, therefore, less than 1/20 of 1 percent of the total Post Office personnel.

The Post Office certainly does not look like a "haven" for "draft dodgers."

Of the remaining Government employees nearly half are women. About 119,380 are men of draft age (exclusive of a few small agencies whose reports have not yet been submitted). Of these men, 25,537 are single, 26,195 are married without children, and 67,647 are married with children.

Let's turn first to the 25,537 single men. By August 15, 1943, 3,582 had been classified by Selective Service in Class I and were awaiting induction, ready to go into the armed forces; 11,667 had been placed in Class IV as physically unfit for military service, and 1,502 had been given a Class III classification by their boards because of dependency or hardship. No information was available as to the classification of some 2,743. The lack of information with respect to the classification of these employees is due, in part, to the failure of some individual employees to report promptly to the Government their induction or any change in their draft status, and to the delays involved in compiling figures received from the field. Occupational deferments had been received by only 6,043.

I should like to analyze these 6,043 somewhat more in detail:

A. 1,077 of these are in the Department of Commerce;

190 in the Bureau of Standards are engaged in scientific work of prime importance to the war;

139 in the Weather Bureau are meteorologists or weather observers;

178 in the Coast and Geodetic Survey are engaged in exploration and mapping of coastal defense waters;

554 in the Civil Aeronautics Administration operate the network of Federal airways used almost exclusively now by Army and Navy aircraft;

13 in the U.S. Patent Office are physicists, chemists, and scientists, studying patents of potential value in this mechanized war;

3 are Bureau Chiefs.

B. There are 1,225 single men in the Federal Bureau of Investigation who are in Class II. These agents investigate cases of espionage, sabotage, and subversive activities, and perform other duties so intimately related to the war that they might easily be considered members of the armed forces.

C. Another 1,800 employed by various agencies and departments are overseas, many in actual combat zones. These consist mainly of employees of the Coast and Geodetic Survey charting North Pacific waters, civil aeronautical personnel engaged in air traffic control and airways communications, radio monitor operators, operating railway workers, F.B.I. agents, operating and maintenance employees of the Panama Canal, technicians, engineers, pilots, members of the Foreign Diplomatic Service, and representatives of foreign economic agencies.

D. Among the other deferred are 132 radio operators and radio technicians in the Federal Communications Commission, 387 engineers and geologists in the Department of the Interior, 352 specialists in the Department of Agriculture engaged in the inspection of food, the growing of guayule for rubber, in the protection of our national forests, or in the protection of our farms against plant or animal disease, 60 inspectors protecting our borders against illegal entry or smuggling; 60 scientists in the United States Public Health Service or the United States Food and Drug Administration; 278 scientists, engineers, and chemists in the employ of the Tennessee Valley Authority engaged in construction of flood control dams and the building and operation of power plants; and 84 in the Maritime Commission supervising our ship-construction program.

This accounts for 5,455 of the 6,043 deferred single men. The remaining deferred employees occupy key positions in the various departments and agencies.

If the normal experience of Selective Service holds true with this group, about 40 percent would be ineligible anyway for military .service by reason of their physical condition.

Non-production Federal employees abroad, i.e., those not engaged in actual production of war materials or facilities, are now being individually examined by the Review Committee to make certain that only those physically unfit for military service or those possessing exceptional qualifications are granted continued deferment.

The same holds true of the 26,195 married men without children in the Government employ. Of these 26,195 men, 5,287 had been classified by Selective Service in Class I and were awaiting induction on August 15, 1943, 6,730 had been placed in Class IV as physically unfit for military service, and 5,635 had been given a Class III classification by their boards because of dependency or hardship. No information was available as to the classification of some 594.

The number deferred for occupational reasons—was 7,949. Like the single men, they are all engaged in work essential to the prosecution of the war and their cases have been carefully examined by the Review Committee. Here, too, about 40 percent would be found ineligible for military service by reason of their physical condition.

There are, besides, 2,003 uniformed personnel running the War Shipping Administration Training Organization and 14,050 cadets receiving training in the Training Organization schools for service in the merchant marine, who have also been deferred. These men are not really part of the civilian establishment of the Government.

The broad, over-all, unfounded charges of "draft dodgers" in Government service are particularly unfair to our Federal personnel. I am convinced that they are anxious to put on their country's uniform and that they have been kept, often against their will, in their present jobs. Their Government itself, and not the men as individuals, decided that they could be more useful to its war effort where they are.

This attempted discrediting of the public service is also unfair to the many who left the Government to enter the armed forces and who plan to return to their positions after the war. Unfortunately the statistics of those ex-employees of the Government now in the armed services are incomplete, but their very number would silence the mudslingers. As of January 1, 1943, there were 238, 154 Federal employees in the armed services. The estimated number today is approximately double that amount—or about a half-million.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress Defending Federal Employees Against Charges of Draft Dodging. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209630

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