Streamlined Service

Critics of the War Service Information Bureau have often been disgruntled 4-F's, misfits, or hale and hearty specialists who believed that they could contribute more in a technical position than they could as a draftee. These men were dissatisfied with the Bureau at first because they felt that it held no information applicable to them, and in most respects their position was justified. The problem of the perfect physical specimen has now been reduced by the establishment of various Army and Navy reserve enlistment programs, and the specialist in the sciences can find any number of openings either through his Department or through enquiry at the Bureau.

The report on the W. S. I. B. submitted by the undergraduate War Service Committee contains a number of excellent suggestions for increasing the prestige of the Bureau, its usefulness, and its efficiency. The present policy of the staff, which is limited in numbers and in time, has been to find out the qualifications of the applicant, acquaint him with the opportunities open to him on the basis of his experience and physical shape, and let him make up his own mind as to what he should do. A number of students complained because certain possibilities had not been mentioned to them, but there is no instance of anyone missing out on something because he was not told of it. The Bureau obviously cannot reel off to each individual student the entire contents of its files. The matter of how much deciding the Bureau should do is debatable. Everybody wants someone else to decide for him, and it puts a lot of responsibility on College officials if they make a bad choice.

But there is still a lot of room for improvement. The increased number of deferred enlistment programs has taken care of most of the undergraduates. However, there are still many men who are fitted for government service or defense work, who are yet out of touch with potential jobs. There are a lot of vacancies occasioned by men who have left the government for the Army or Navy, and bright Harvard lads who can't get into the armed forces should have some sort of pipe-line to Washington. It might even be worthwhile to keep a representative of the Bureau at the capital, since it is functioning for graduates as well as for students. As things now stand, there is too little centralization. It is still the safest bet to make a trip to Washington for a job, to shop around in the various Departments, or to write directly to the Army or Navy, with the W. S. I. B. as an occasional-source of suggestion.