Tuesday, October 17. 1967
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
3
What to do when 'the Letter' comes
Draft theory, laws, evasions analyzed
By Robert Entriken Jr.
Kansan Staff Reporter
Years of aversion, resentment and objection to the conscription of American males for the armed services is coming to a head this week in Washington. D.C.
Draft Resistance Week, October 16-21, will culminate Saturday with planned civil disobedience at the Pentagon blocking hallways and entrances.
While sweeping changes to the present draft laws have been suggested by many this year, the Pentagon demonstrators favor total abolition of the draft.
Basis in constitution
The legal basis for the draft comes from two clauses of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Clause 12 provides Congress with the power "To raise and support armies . . ." and Clause 13 "To provide and maintain a navy."
These clauses give Congress the power to draft men to meet the manpower needs of the armed forces, and to enact legislation to provide for the Selective Service.
Among such legislation is the Universal Military Service and Training Act of 1551 which requires each male citizen to "present himself for and submit to registration (for the draft) within five days of his 18th birthday."
Draft dodgers punished The maximum sentence for any draft violation, from evading the
draft to purposeful non-cooperation with the Selective Service, is five years imprisonment and/or $10,000 fine.
While fines are almost never imposed unless the defendant has a jury trial, says a booklet published by the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO), the idea of prison is one many anti-draft sympathizers find unsavory.
A former civil rights worker who had spent two years in prison on as a draft offender said, "I have one piece of advice for anybody fighting the draft. Don't go to jail because jail destroys you."
Others, however, find their convictions stronger than the specter of imminent incarceration.
'Don't want to go'
"I don't want to go to jail," said a man about to begin a five-year jail term for draft evasion, "but this war (in Vietnam) is illegal if the Nuremberg trials meant anything. Somebody has to raise the issues and I can't con out now."
Many non-cooperators who feel that the war in Vietnam is illegal attempt to raise the Nuremburg principle that individuals could be held accountable for participating in their governments crimes against humanity.
Former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials, wrote: "If certain acts in violation of
treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us."
Courts don't accept it
Most courts, however, have refused to allow this line of arguments in defense pleadings.
"The difficulty," says New York attorney Conrad Lynn in Good's article, "is getting a clear-cut confrontation with the issue of U.S. policy aired before the Supreme Court. The lower courts are avoiding it and sometimes these cases lack the proper constitutional vehicle to get Vietnam into it.
"Yet it exists," continued Lynn. "Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution provides congress with the power to raise armies and provide for the common defense. But the American empire is in an expansionist period and we don't have time for these little Constitutions and laws."
C.O.'s exempt
Provisions exist under the Universal Military Training and Selective Service Act to exempt bona fide conscientious objectors from combatant duty or even from all military service.
A section of the act provides that "Nothing contained in this
title shall . . . require any person to be subject to combatant training and service . . . who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form."
However, attorney Lynn decries the "widespread ignorance among draftees concerning their rights.
"Many who apparently don't qualify for c.o. (conscientious objector) status and can't manage academic deferments get sucked in before they know what's hit them. And most draft boards
aren't about to advise them of their rights."
Right to appeal
Among these unknown rights is the right to appeal a draft classification at any time up to the day of induction, because of a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling voiding the Selective Service Law regulation that a person must appeal his classification within ten days of receiving notice.
Yet the Notice of Classification which the Selective Service sends to registrants still states: "The
See Draft Theory, page 5
Bids for Theta Tau house being taken
Bids are being taken for a new Theta Tau chapter house and it is hoped that construction can begin this fall, according to Fred C. Smithmeyer, chapter adviser for the professional engineering fraternity.
The new house, to be located southwest of the campus at 1926 Stewart, will replace the old 25-man chapter house at 1602 Louisiana. The new structure, to be built at a cost of about $200,000,
will have a 50-man capacity, Price Hays, a specialist in fraternity house architecture, is architect for the Theta Tau project.
Officers of the House Board Corporation, which will build the house, are: president, Glenn Anschutz, Topeka; and directors, William F. Franklin, Prairie Village; T. Paul Dwyer, Shawnee Mission; Robert A. Russell, Shawnee Mission; and Robert S. Patterson, Kansas City, Mo.