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1 ne selective service sysicm, without regard to those regulations has proceeded to add a new requirement. It has provided that even where all three oi the situations required by the regulations 'are present and the registrant is therefore entitled to deferment, yet in spite of that fact he shall not be deferred if in the opinion of the local draft board the crop he is producing is in surplus.
To show you to some extent the absurdity of such a regulation, let us apply that to a wheat crop that might be produced. A man shows to the satisfaction of the draft board 4nt he is actually engaged in producing that crop of wheat.
Mr. Hoffman of Michigan. * Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? - Mr. Harrison of Virginia. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. Hoffman of Michigan. Can the gentleman tell me where the draft board got that idea that he has just expressed ?
Mr. Harrison of Virginia. I have no idea on earth. They got it out of the air.
The power to determine which crops are in surplus is the power to control the agricultural production of the Nation. ' If any agency of the Government should have such powdr, it should not be the military or a bureau whose sole function is to procure manpower for the military.
"In his statement the other day . before the Committee on Artned Services, General Hersbey- tells how it is determined^ whether or not a crop is in surplus. Here is what he says:
We get that probably from the newspapers, from the Department of Agriculture, from .the list of storages, and all that sort of thing. Now, that is a fact. We interpret it in different ways. «■ Should the agricultural supply of the Nation be determined by what the officials of the Selective Service System read in the newspapers or learn from a list of storages?
The effect of this policy can be seen frotn these figures: For the year ending June 30, 1945, in the midst of desperate war, agriculture accounted for S.7 per-cent of . all deferments, but in the year ending June 30, 1954, agriculture accounted for but six-tenths of 1 percent of deferments. (Sh AMENDMENT — p«;e 11>
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