1.22-32

MEMORANDUM.

There is here set out a general brief summary of the successive steps to be followed by local and district boards under the President's Regulations.

This summary is in general language and has no directive force whatsoever. It is not intended to alter or modify and shall not be understood or construed as in any sense or to any degree altering or modifying the provisions of the President's Regulations, which, being made by him pursuant to the provisions of statute, have the force and effect of law.

This summary is merely for the convenience of the members of the local and district boards with the thought that it may in some measure act as an aid in their study of the Regulations themselves.

The following are steps in the execution of the Selective Service Law:

1. The registration.

2. The creation and organization of local and district boards to consider the various questions of exemption and discharge arising under the law and the Regulations, to continue with necessary registrations, and to execute the other provisions of the law until the men have been finally selected for service.

3. The determination of the order in which registered men shall be called up for examination and selected for military service.

4. The assignment of quotas and the allotment of credits to the several States, Territories, and the District of Columbia and the subdivisions thereof.

5. The examination, in the order determined, of a sufficient number of registered men in each subdivision to fill the quota to go to the colors, and cover the exemption, partial exemption, exclusion, or discharge of those who are not to be selected for military service.

6. The notification to those selected for military service of the date upon which they must report to be assembled and sent to mobilization camps and the assembling of men selected for the military service and their transportation to mobilization camps.

(III)

The first step-registration-has been accomplished by what may be described as a system of supervised decentralization, and there has been created an administrative machine responding to the control of the President, through the Secretary of War and the office of the Provost Marshal General. The administrative areas have been the States, Territories, and the District of Columbia, and the execution of the law thus far in each area has been under the supervision of the governor, or the commissioners, through the office of the adjutant general. The working units in each States have been registration boards, normally one for each county and for approximately each 30,000 of the population of the cities of more than 30,000, in the latter case operating under the direction of the mayors. This machinery has demonstrated a splendid efficiency in the accomplishment, in a single day, of the registration of practically all males whose registration was required by statute.

Appreciative and kneenly sensible of these services, the President is anxiously desirous to continue (so far as the positive provisions of law and the exigencies of the situation will permit) to avail himself, in the further execution of the law, of the services of those who have contributed so much to the success thus far attendant upon its administration, and he has, therefore, wherever it appeared feasible, appointed the registration personnel for the further work of the selective draft. In this connection he particularly wishes the governors and their respective adjutants general to continue generally to observe, as heretofore, all the operations incident to the enforcement of the law in their respective States and to report to the Provost Marshal General such matters as in their opinions should be brought to his attention in order that the law may be justly and efficiently enforced.

It is, moreover, expected that after the selection of men for service has been finally made under the act, State agencies will be further used, under the supervision of the governors and their adjutants general, in arranging for the mobilization of the men selected.

The registration regulations heretofore published have governed the first of the steps above outlined. The functions of registration which still remain to be accomplished are described in the President's regulations.

The remaining operations yet to be performed under the statute will be carried out under the regulations issued by the President pursuant to and in accordance with the power and authority given him by statute.

Speaking in summary of the present regulations—

They provide that the President shall create local and district boards to carry out the selective draft prescribed in the statute; that the local boards shall immediately upon their organization