Powers of the President during crisesSmith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
History
Powers of the President during crises
Smith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
Constitutional history -- United States; Executive power -- United States
A person naive in political and human relations or a government facing
nascent revolution would resort solely to the technique of command
and coercion to secure the adjustment of individual goals and efforts
to those of the nation. Thus in the United States many war programs
depended upon the offering of incentives or simple exhortation and
appeal to individual loyalty for their effectiveness. And, in a
democracy it remains true in time of war as in peacetime, that the
essential nature of the political process is “the translation of
conflict among interest groups into authoritative decision.”[127]
These are the conditions under which statutes and presidential
proclamations relating to the mobilization of the human resources of
the nation will be discussed.
POSITIVE INTEGRATION
_Civilian Labor Force_: Notwithstanding the failure of the United
States to adopt a form of outright labor conscription in the last war,
a number of statutory provisions did attempt to integrate segments
of the labor force more closely in the war effort. Those which were
primarily repressive in nature--i.e., which principally concerned the
imposition of penalties or the prohibition of specified activities--are
treated in the second section of this chapter.
In June 1939, Congress set up a program for the training of civil
aircraft pilots.[128] The Navy Department Appropriations Act for
fiscal 1941[129] included an emergency fund to enable the President,
among other things, to procure and train civilian personnel necessary
in connection with the production of critical and essential items of
equipment and material and the use or operation of such equipment and
material. A month later, Congress authorized the Secretary of War,
during the period of any national emergency declared by the President,
to employ laborers and mechanics in excess of forty hours per week, at
time and one-half for overtime.[130] Another 1940 law suspended during
the national emergency statutory provisions imposing the eight hour day
for Maritime Commission contractors.[131]
Section 801 of the Second War Powers Act of 1942 authorized the
President to direct the assignment of Civilian Conservation Corps
manpower to protect the munitions, aircraft, and other war industries,
municipal water supply, power, and other utilities, and to protect
resources subject to the hazards of forest fires.[132]
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