yed only a small part in the debate on this
highly controversial legislation, but during congressional hearings on
the bill black spokesmen testified on discrimination against Negroes
in the services.[1-23] These witnesses concluded that if the draft law
did not provide specific guarantees against it, discrimination would
prevail.

[Footnote 1-22: The Army's plans and amendments are
treated in great detail in Lee, _Employment of
Negro Troops_.]

[Footnote 1-23: Hearings Before the Committee on
Military Affairs. House of Representatives, 76th
Cong., 3d sess., on H.R. 10132, _Selective
Compulsory Military Training and Service_, pp.
585-90.]

[Illustration: GUNNER'S GANG ON THE USS MAINE.]

A majority in both houses of Congress seemed to agree. During (p. 011)
floor debate on the Selective Service Act, Senator Robert F. Wagner of
New York proposed an amendment to guarantee to Negroes and other
racial minorities the privilege of voluntary enlistment in the armed
forces. He sought in this fashion to correct evils described some ten
days earlier by Rayford W. Logan, chairman of the Committee for Negro
Participation in the National Defense, in testimony before the House
Committee on Military Affairs. The Wagner proposal triggered critical
comments and questions. Senators John H. Overton and Allen J. Ellender
of Louisiana viewed the Wagner amendment as a step toward "mixed"
units. Overton, Ellender, and Senator Lister Hill of Alabama proposed
that the matter should be "left to the Army." Hill also attacked the
amendment because it would allow the enlistment of Japanese-Americans,
some of whom he claimed were not loyal to the United States.[1-24]

[Footnote 1-24: _Congressional Record_, 76th Cong.,
3d sess., vol. 86, p. 10890.]

[Illustration: GENERAL PERSHING, AEF COMMANDER, INSPECTS TROOPS _of
the 802d (Colored) Pioneer Regiment in France, 1918_.]

No filibuster was attempted, and the Wagner amendment passed the
Senate easily, 53 to 21. It provided

that any person between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five
regardless of race or color shall be afforded an opportunity
voluntarily to enlist and be inducted into the land and naval
forces (including aviation units) of the United States for the
training