Today in Herstory: Congress Approves the Creation of a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (12 MAY 1942)
Today in Herstory: Congress Approves the Creation of a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
May 12, 1942: Legislation to establish a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) got final Congressional approval today with a Senate vote of 38 to 27. (I wonder how soon the sexual assaults started)
Representative Edith Norse Rogers, Republican of Massachusetts. She has been representing the Fifth District of Massachusetts since June 30, 1925, when she got 72% of the vote in a special election to fill her late husband's seat. She has won subsequent elections by even larger margins.
It passed the House on March 17th by a vote of 249 to 86. The bill, sponsored by Representative Edith Nourse Rogers, Republican of Massachusetts, now goes to President Roosevelt for his signature. Under the provisions of the bill, the WAAC will enlist up to 150,000 members who may serve anywhere in the world they’re needed, will receive Army pay, be subject to military regulations, and live on Army posts.
The two-hour debate prior to the vote was intense at times, as Senators Francis Maloney, Democrat of Connecticut and John Danaher, Republican of Connecticut, led those arguing against the bill. In addition to failing to defeat the bill, Maloney was also thwarted in his attempt to pass an amendment to confine the WAAC to service within the boundaries of the United States. His proposal was defeated by a vote of 37 to 26, with Senator Hattie Caraway, Democrat of Arkansas, the only woman in the Senate, voting in favor of the Rogers Bill, and against the Maloney Amendment. Senator Maloney seems to be opposed to women in any military capacity, and claimed that this measure “casts a shadow on the sanctity of the home.”
Another controversy involved the issue of racial discrimination. Three amendments were proposed which would have specifically banned racial bias in the WAAC. But if amended in any way, the bill would have had to go back to the House for re-approval, and this would have delayed, for an unknown amount of time, the establishment of the WAAC.
Though under normal circumstances the bill’s chief Senate sponsor, Senator Warren Austin, Republican of Vermont, would have endorsed an anti-racial-bias amendment, he said that the need for immediate passage of the bill, and the assurance of the War Department that it would not discriminate on the basis of race in the WAAC caused him to oppose the amendments. Two amendments were withdrawn, and the third, by Senator James Hughes, Democrat of Delaware, was rejected by a voice vote. According to Senator Austin, there is “nothing in the bill which would lead to discrimination.”
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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/05/12/today-in-herstory-congress-approves-the-creation-of-a-womens-army-auxiliary-corps/
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