It was on this day in 1940 that 75000 men were drafted into involuntary military service, on orders of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was the first peacetime draft in American History. Germany had overrun Poland and controlled much of western Europe. American needed an Army, Roosevelt believed, and the one we had was very small.

A fundamental difference between the 1940 draft and that of the Civil War was that rich men could no longer hire a replacement. This practice had sparked riots protesting the exploitation of the poor in 1863.

The draft ended in 1973, though I remember registering in 1979. And as far as I know, one must still register at age 18.

Today, a person still can’t hire a replacement if there is a draft. But those without the means or the inclination to seek a college education, or enter the private sector, may still find themselves seeking transitional employment in the Armed Forces, and thus subject to being fodder for Bush’s infernal misadventures. I believe this truth was illuminated by Senator Kerry in the recent election. The fact that he botched his “joke,” and that it is a tasteless truth, makes it no less the reality.

Stay in school, kids, or face death in the war on terr’r.

Which reminds me, the very fine poet Phillip Levine was interviewed by The New Yorker a few weeks ago, and said this about his poem Refusing to Serve – Dawn, 1952:

I remember Howard Moss [The New Yorker’s poetry editor from 1950 to 1987] saying to me, “Don’t you think we should call this ‘Conscientious Objector’?” And I said, “No, that would be inaccurate.” I was not a conscientious objector. I refused to serve. I was not a pacifist. And when asked that very question by the draft board, I said, “No, I could kill some people, but they’re all here in Detroit.”