Note (Back) — CHAPTER 8

Given statistics like these, it was difficult to stimulate black interest in a career as an Army officer, as General Paul was well aware. He had the distribution of black officers appointed to the Regular Army studied in 1947 to see if it was in consonance with the new racial policy. While most of the arms and services passed muster with the Personnel and Administration Division, Paul felt compelled to remind the Chief of Engineers, whose corps had so far awarded no Regular Army commission to the admittedly limited number of black applicants, that officers were to be accepted in the Regular Army without regard to race. He repeated this warning to the Quartermaster General and the Chief of Transportation; both had accepted black officers for the Regular Army but had selected only the smallest fraction of those applying. Although the black applicants did score slightly below the whites, Paul doubted that integration would lower the standards of quality in these branches, and he wanted every effort made to increase the number of black officers.[8-44]