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Grenville Clark and the Origins of Selective Service

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

John G. Clifford
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Extract

On may 8, 1940, some 24 hours before German panzers began their blitzkrieg through the Low Countries, a small group of middle-aged men gathered informally at the Harvard Club in New York City. These men, 9 in all, represented the “old Plattsburg crowd,” the same group which had cooperated with General Leonard Wood in 1915–1917 in organizing the famous Military Instruction Camps for Business and Professional Men at Plattsburg, New York. It was almost 25 years to the day that they had first met following the sinking of the Lusitania in May, 1915, and the present discussion concerned plans for a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , January 1973 , pp. 17 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1973

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References

1 Minutes of Executive Committee MTCA, Second Corps Area, May 8, 1940, Grenville Clark MSS, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H.

2 Fairchild, Byron and Grossman, Jonathan, United States Army in World War II, The War Department, The Army and Industrial Manpower (Washington, 1959), p. 219Google Scholar.

3 See Mayer, Martin, Emory R. Buckner (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

4 Felix Frankfurter to Jean Monnet, September 29, 1952, Felix Frankfurter MSS, Library of Congress.

5 Morison, Elting E., Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson (Boston, 1960), pp. 396–397Google Scholar.

6 “Grenville Clark: Statesman Incognito,” Fortune, XXX (03, 1946), 110–115 plusGoogle Scholar.

7 Spencer, Samuel R. Jr, “A History of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 from Inception to Enactment” (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1951), p. 27Google Scholar.

8 Clark to Wyles, May 16, 1940, Clark MSS.

9 Wyles to Clark, May 21, 1940, ibid.

10 Clark to Franklin D. Roosevelt, May 16, 1940, ibid.

11 Roosevelt to Clark, May 18, 1940, Roosevelt, Elliott, ed., FDR: His Personal Letters (New York, 1948), II, 1026Google Scholar.

12 For those attending, see the New York Times, May 23, 1940.

13 Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” p. 37Google Scholar.

14 Palmer to Clark, May 12, 1940, Clark MSS.

15 The New York Times. May 23, 1940. Harry S. Hooker to Missy LeHand, May 23, 1940, PPF 482, Franklin D. Roosevelt MSS, Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.

16 Palmer memorandum, May 27, 1940, Clark MSS.

17 Interview with Lt. General Lewis B. Hershey, Washington, D.C., December 15, 1967.

18 Quoted in Pogue, Forrest G., George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope (New York, 1966), p. 58Google Scholar.

19 Hershey Interview, December 15, 1967. General Walter Weible, also present during the May 28 luncheon, gave me his impressions in a telephone conversation, December 16, 1967.

20 Watson, Mark S., Chief of Staff, Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, 1950), p. 190Google Scholar.

21 ibid., pp. 190–191; Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 92–96Google Scholar.

22 Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act, ” pp. 115–125Google Scholar; Morison, , Turmoil and Tradition, pp. 398–399Google Scholar; Langer, William E. and Gleason, S. Everett, The Challenge to Isolation, 1937–1940 (New York, 1952), pp. 510–511Google Scholar; notes of interview with Felix Frankfurter, August 28, 1947, Clark MSS; Greenbaum, Edward S., A Lawyer's Job (New York, 1967), pp. 225–228Google Scholar.

23 Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” p. 117Google Scholar; Frankfurter interview, August 28, 1947, Clark MSS.

24 Morison, , Turmoil and Tradition, p. 399Google Scholar.

25 Notes of interview with Frankfurter, August 28, 1947, Clark MSS; the letters are in Freedman, Max, ed., Roosevelt and Frankfurter: Their Correspondence (Boston, 1967), pp. 524–528Google Scholar; Root memorandum, June 1, 1940, Clark MSS.

26 In a letter to Edward S. Greenbaum, July 23, 1965, Clark later described how Patterson's appointment was finally brought about: “FDR procrastinated … by reason of his obligations to Louis Johnson…. Finally after some weeks of delay HLS got tired of it and asked me whether I agreed that something drastic must be done. When I did agree, he wrote in his handwriting on one sheet ‘I hereby appoint Robert P. Patterson Assistant Secretary of War’ with a space for the President's signature and on another sheet attached to it ‘Mr. President, this appointment should be signed today.’ Showing these to me, HLS asked my opinion as to whether they were too strong medicine and when I said I thought them all right, he thought a while and then said, ‘What would you think of my instructing the messenger who takes them to say he was told to wait for an answer?’ I replied that this was equivalent to his resigning if the appointment didn't come back that afternoon but that I thought it was time to do it. Accordingly, the messenger went with those instructions and about an hour later HLS asked me to come to his room (at that time I had a room near his) and as I came in merely held up the appointment with FDR's signature on it.” Greenbaum, , A Lawyer's Job, 227–228Google Scholar.

27 Frankfurter to Clark, May 16, 1957, Frankfurter MSS.

28 Differences of opinion always were just beneath the surface in the relations between the NEC and national MTCA headquarters in Chicago. See the Tom R. Wyles folder in the Clark MSS; also several letters in the MTCA records at the Chicago Historical Society, e.g., Max P. Lilienthal to Wyles, June 3, 1940; Wyles to William B. Tuttle, July 9, 1940; Wyles to Robert Jamison, July 9, 1940.

29 Minutes, NEC meeting, June 3, 1940; Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 126–130Google Scholar; notes of interview with Perley Boone (1947), Clark MSS.

30 Hershey interview, December 15, 1967.

31 Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 136–139Google Scholar.

32 The New York Times June 7, 8, and 19, 1940; Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 96–103Google Scholar; Watson, , Chief of Staff, pp. 110–112Google Scholar; Rosenman, Samuel I., ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 13 vols. (New York, 1938–1950), IX, 251Google Scholar; Sherwood, Robert, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York, 1948), pp. 132–133Google Scholar. Clark to Edwin Watson, June 14, 1940, and Roosevelt memorandum for Watson, June 14, 1940, OF 4065, Roosevelt MSS.

33 Harry H. Woodring to Alfred Roelker, June 11, 1940, Secretary of War Correspondence, RG 104, Box 185, National Archives; The New York Times, June 14–28, 1940; MTCA to Louis A. Johnson (copy), July 2, 1940, Robert P. Patterson MSS, Library of Congress; Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 142–156Google Scholar; Notes of interviews with John Kenderdine, Julius O. Adler, and Archibald G. Thacher (1947), Clark MSS.

34 Memoir, James W. Wadsworth, Columbia Oral History Office, p. 436Google Scholar.

35 Notes of interviews with Howard G. Petersen, Edward R. Burke, and J. O. Adler (1947), Clark MSS; New York Times, June 21, 22, 1940; Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” 1964–167Google Scholar.

36 Watson, , Chief of Staff, pp. 192–194Google Scholar; Hershey interview, December 15, 1967; Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 215–217Google Scholar; notes of interview with Howard C. Petersen (1947), Clark MSS; Diary of Henry L. Stimson, July 8–9, 1940, Henry L. Stimson MSS, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

37 Clark to Pershing, June 12 and 21, 1940, and Pershing to Clark, June 14, 1940, John J. Pershing MSS, Library of Congress; Pershing to Morris Sheppard, July 3, 1940, RG 46, Box 116, National Archives.

38 The New York Times, July 3–5, 1940.

39 Quoted in Hatch, Alden, The Wadsworths of the Genessee (New York, 1959), p. 253Google Scholar.

40 Stimson Diary, July 10, 1940; the New York Times, July 13, 1940;Pogue, , Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, pp. 59–60Google Scholar.

41 Hershey interview, December 15, 1967.

42 Cantrill, Hadley, ed., Public Opinion, 1935–1946 (Princeton, 1951), 458–489Google Scholar. For a careful survey, see Spencer, “Selective Training and Service Act,” Ch. IX.

43 The New York Times, August 7, 1940; Congressional Record (August 6, 1940), 15166–71.

44 Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 347–355Google Scholar; Why We Must Have Compulsory Military Training and Service, copies in Clark and Penning MSS.

45 Stimson Diary, August 22, 1940.

46 Hershey interview, December 15, 1967.

47 There are copies of this dossier in the Clark MSS; see also, Clark to Stimson, July 27, 1940, Stimson MSS. For some of the arguments used with the Senators: Clark to Francis T. Maloney, August 12, 14, 1940; Clark to Robert A. Taft, August 16, 1940; James D. Williams to Burton K. Wheeler, August 16, 1940; Douglas Arant to Clark, July 27, August 8, 1940, Clark MSS.

48 Quoted in Time (August 12, 1940), p. 13.

49 Stimson Diary, August 22, 1940.

50 Franklin Canfield to Elihu Root, Jr., August 21, 1940, Clark MSS.

51 Stimson Diary, August 23, 1940.

52 Canfield to Root, August 24, 1940, Clark MSS. Stimson to Roosevelt, August 23, 1940, PSF: War Department, Box 39, Roosevelt MSS.

53 Canfield to Root, August 22, 1940, Clark to members of House Military Affairs Committee, August 3, 1940, Clark to Senate and House Committee, August 28, 1940, Clark MSS.

54 Clark to Stimson, September 9, 1940 (wire), Clark MSS.

55 Stimson Diary, September 9, 1940.

56 The New York Times, August 3, 1940.

57 Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” pp. 408–413Google Scholar.

58 The New York Times, August 24 and September 7, 1940. While Roosevelt may have been circumspect in public, privately he acknowledged the crucial importance of the selective service bill. He wrote to one skeptical Democrat: “You may be right from the point of view of votes this fall but if you were in my place you would realize that in the light of world conditions it is, for the sake of national safety, necessary for us to prepare against attack just as fast and just as sensibly as we can …. There are some occasions in the national history where leaders have to move for the preservation of American liberties and not just drift with what may or may not be a political doubt of the moment…. I do hope you will think this thing through in terms of national safety and not just in terms of votes.” Roosevelt to L. B. Sheley, August 26, 1940, PSF: War Department, Draft folder, Box 39, Roosevelt MSS.

59 Clark to Willkie, August 2, 1940 (wire), Clark MSS.

60 Wadsworth to Willkie, July 24, 1940, James W. Wadsworth MSS, Library of Congress.

61 Willkie to Wadsworth, August 5, 1940, ibid.

62 The New York Times, August 18, 1940.

63 Stimson Diary, August 20, 1940.

64 New York Herald Tribune, August 27, 1940.

65 The New York Times, August 29, 1940.

66 Hershey interview, December 15, 1967.

67 Rosenman, , Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, IX, 428–31Google Scholar.

68 Petersen to Clark, September 23, 1940, Clark MSS.

69 Hatch, , The Wadsworths, p. 255Google Scholar.

70 Stimson to Clark, September 17, 1940, Clark MSS. Stimson's letter continued: “I can realize that from the difficulties I myself met in pushing behind your efforts. The officers in the Department around me from General Marshall down agree that … none of them expected that the passage of such bill would be possible and, if it hadn't been for the efforts of you and your associates, they would have been right. As it is, an unprecedented feat has been accomplished in obtaining a service bill before war has actually broken out.” See also, J. M. Palmer to Clark, September 9, 1940, ibid.

71 Wadsworth to Clark, September 12, 1940, Wadsworth MSS.

72 Clark to Wadsworth, September 17, 1940, ibid.

73 Greenfield, Kent R., Palmer, Robert R., Wiley, Bell I., The Organization of Ground Combat Troops (Washington, 1947), pp. 199–203Google Scholar.

74 Pogue, , Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, p. 62Google Scholar.

75 After becoming Selective Service Director in 1941, Lewis Hershey once asked Clark for a portrait to hang in his Washington office, but was refused on the grounds that his (Clark's) efforts in 1940 were “insignificant.” Hershey interview, December 15, 1967.

76 Clark to Robert A. Taft (telegram), March 18, 1948, Clark MSS.

77 Nicolay, John G. and Hay, John, eds., The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1905), VI, 312Google Scholar; Clark to Cordell Hull, September 15, 1944 (copy), Frankfurter MSS; John McA. Palmer to Clark, June 21, 1948; Spencer, , “Selective Training and Service Act,” p. 7Google Scholar; Clark, Grenville, A Plan for Peace (New York, 1950), p. 3Google Scholar.