When the Speaker of the House recognizes the honorable gentleman from Georgia, chairman of the Committee on the Armed Services" one day this week, a new draft Act will be just a month away. The gentleman from Georgia, Carl Vinson, will bring in HR 2811, the House version of the new draft bill, which he expects to be passed before spring recess next week. But it should take another two or three weeks for Senate and House conference committees to clear up differences between the Senate bill and House 2811, and for the two legislative branches to take their final votes.

Debate on these Draft bills has seen two major types of argument; for and against Universal Military Service and Training and on how specific provisions of the Act should be worked out. This first fight has so far been largely one between Administration supporters and the Republicans. Once the Defense Department was persuaded that UMS should be part of the legislation, Democrats for the most part went along, standing behind the bill as presented by Secretary Marshall early this year.

The Administration intended the new draft law to be two measures in one; it would provide for the extension of the present Selective Service Act with a lower minimum draft ago. But it will also contain long-range plans for eventual establishment of a Universal Training system. Under that set-up all men would be required to serve for a training period in the armed services and would then go into an organized and greatly expanded reserve. Through this double-proposal, the Defense Department hoped to raise a large standing army for the present crisis and at the same time establish a permanent safeguard against unpreparcdness.

The opposition could hardly attack a law so obviously necessary as the Selective Service Act. So the Republicans have concentrated on the UMT provisions of the two Houses' bills. Their argument has been that there is no need to legalize Universal Training, that extension of the draft for a few years is enough. Some, like Senator Taft particularly, have argued that Congress should not delegate so much power to the president by letting him set up the program and run it as he pleases. This is also, they point out, a long-range delegation of authority, since the UMT provisions will not go into operation for some years to come. It will take the president that long to set up the machinery, which includes a five-man board, a nation-wide examination system, and a new reserve policy.

But most of the witnesses who testified before the Senate and House Committees agreed with the Defense Department, including the majority of the educators who stand to lose most under such a plan. Effective Administration majorities in both groups put through bills that came very close to Marshall's advice. In the Senate--where the only floor debate so far has taken place--Republicans used two main attacks. First, they tried to vote the UMST provisions out. Then, when this failed, they tried to limit the Act to four years, which would effectively stop UMST from ever going into operation. They were unsuccessful; in fact, many Republicans voted with the majority.

In Washington Administration supporters expressed surprise at the speed and smoothness with which Senators Richard Russell and Lyndon Johnson of the Armed Services Committee handled the bill. It was all the more amazing, he felt, considering the death of Senator Virgil Chapman, the day before he was scheduled to lead debate in favor of the proposal. There are jokers, however, in this bill and in the House measure, that the Defense Department and strong backers of UMST would like to see removed. Further articles in this series will discuss the Draft bills in detail, and the second type of major struggle, that between the various groups over specific clauses and provisions of the House and Senate measures.