Despite the abysmal failure of the Job Corps (an anarchy which has cost more than $7,300 per man enrolled), Washington’s enthusiasts for regimentation are full of fresh schemes for the “direction” of American youth. Last spring, Mr. R. Strange McNamara, Secretary of Defense, strangely proposed a new plan of universal military training and called for “national service” of a noncombatant character; nobody applauded him.
Undiscouraged, nevertheless, now Mr. W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary of Labor, advocates “community opportunity boards” to register every young person eighteen years old for enrollment—voluntary at first, perhaps, but to become compulsory if there aren’t enough volunteers—in projects directed by the Federal Government. Apparently young people are considered the property of the state. They would be assigned, willynilly, to college, to vocational training, to “meaningful” employment, or to labor in a “service program” at home or abroad.
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