★
Executive Orders Historical Archive
Cite
Executive Order 9247 ⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight Constitutional Neutral (+0.02) 📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority

Executive Order 9247—Transferring Certain Employment Service and Training Functions to the War Manpower Commission

•
Thursday, September 17, 1942
•
3 min read (645 words)

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 3 min read (645 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

The following agencies, functions, duties, and powers are transferred to the War Manpower Commission in the Office for Emergency Management of the Executive Office of the President and shall be administered under the supervision and direction of the Chairman of the Commission: (a) The United States Employment Service and all functions, duties, and powers of the Social Security Board in the Federal Security Agency relating to employment service.

⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight
Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Armed Forces & Military Establishments Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants Private Citizens & Property Owners

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 17, 1942, this order concerns Transferring Certain Employment Service and Training Functions to the War Manpower Commission. The following agencies, functions, duties, and powers are transferred to the War Manpower Commission in the Office for Emergency Management of the Executive Office of the President and shall be administered under the supervision and direction of the Chairman of the Commission: (a) The United States Employment Service and all functions, duties, and powers of the Social Security Board in the Federal Security Agency…

Constitutional Assessment: Scrutinized through Article II, Section 2, this action exercises the President's constitutional role as Commander in Chief. Early Framers recognized broad executive discretion in commanding military forces during conflict, provided it remains bounded by congressional declarations and respects civilian domestic courts.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

▪

The following agencies, functions, duties, and powers are transferred to the War Manpower Commission in the Office for Emergency Management of the Executive Office of the President and shall be administered under the supervision and direction of the Chairman of the Commission: (a) The United States Employment Service and all functions, duties, and powers of the Social Security Board in the Federal Security Agency relating to employment service.

▪

The Apprenticeship Training Service and the National Youth Administration shall be preserved as organizational entities within the War Manpower Commission. 2.

▪

The following functions, duties, and powers are transferred to the Chairman of the War Manpower Commission: (a) All functions, duties, and powers of the Federal Security Administrator relating to the administration of any agency or function transferred by paragraph 1 of this order.

▪

All records and property (including office equipment, contracts, agreements, and leased office space) used primarily in the administration of any agency, function, duty, or power transferred by this order, and all personnel used primarily in the administration of such agencies, functions, duties, and powers (including officers whose chief duties relate to such administration) are transferred to the War Manpower Commission for use in the administration of the agencies, functions, duties, and powers transferred by this order.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Armed Forces & Military Establishments 🏛️ Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises 🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants 🏛️ Private Citizens & Property Owners
🏛️

The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight)
§

"When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"Power is of an encroaching nature, and it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it." — Federalist No. 48 (1788)

Madison would view this order with watchful scrutiny. Operating in the 'Zone of Twilight' where Congress is silent, each such directive establishes an administrative precedent that steadily expands the executive perimeter at the expense of legislative primacy.

Madisonian Stance: Vigilant / Cautionary
AH

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength must be under the direction of the single hand of the Executive." — Federalist No. 74 (1788)

Hamilton would forcefully champion executive discretion here. For foreign entanglements, commerce defense, and national security, deliberative assemblies are too slow and faction-ridden. A unified, energetic Executive exercising swift command is precisely what the Philadelphia Convention intended for national preservation.

Hamiltonian Stance: Strong Prerogative Support
GM

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)

The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required
📐

Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone
43 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Moderate Friction

Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

Moderate Friction

Directs internal executive branch machinery, agency workflows, and federal personnel.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

Moderate Friction

Engages state and local partners in cooperative federalism programs.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Low Friction

Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Moderate Friction

The order relies on inherent Article II executive discretion, civil service management, or foreign diplomacy where Congress has neither expressly approved nor prohibited action.

Benchmark: Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
ℹ️
How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
645
4,272 characters
Estimated Read Time
3 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
24.6
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
+0.02
Constitutional Neutral
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the First War Powers Act, 1941, and for the purpose of enabling the Chairman of the War Manpower Commission more effectively to carry out the responsibility vested in him by Executive Order No. 9139, dated April 18, 1942, of assuring the most effective mobilization and utilization of the national manpower, it is hereby ordered as follows: 1. The following agencies, functions, duties, and powers are transferred to the War Manpower Commission in the Office for Emergency Management of the Executive Office of the President and shall be administered under the supervision and direction of the Chairman of the Commission: (a) The United States Employment Service and all functions, duties, and powers of the Social Security Board in the Federal Security Agency relating to employment service. (b) The National Youth Administration in the Federal Security Agency, and its functions, duties, and powers. (c) The Apprenticeship Training Service in the Office of the Federal Security Administrator, and its functions, duties, and powers, including those relating to the program to encourage apprentice training in national defense industries. (d) The Training Within Industry Service in the Office of the Federal Security Administrator, and its functions, duties, and powers. The Apprenticeship Training Service and the National Youth Administration shall be preserved as organizational entities within the War Manpower Commission. 2. The following functions, duties, and powers are transferred to the Chairman of the War Manpower Commission: (a) All functions, duties, and powers of the Federal Security Administrator relating to the administration of any agency or function transferred by paragraph 1 of this order. (b) All functions, duties, and powers of the Federal Security Administrator relating to the following matters administered by the Office of Education: loans to students in technical and professional fields (national defense); education and training, defense workers (national defense); and visual aids for war training (national defense). 3. All records and property (including office equipment, contracts, agreements, and leased office space) used primarily in the administration of any agency, function, duty, or power transferred by this order, and all personnel used primarily in the administration of such agencies, functions, duties, and powers (including officers whose chief duties relate to such administration) are transferred to the War Manpower Commission for use in the administration of the agencies, functions, duties, and powers transferred by this order. So much of the unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, or other funds available for the use of any agency in the exercise of any function, duty, or power transferred by this order or for the use of the head of any agency in the exercise of any function, duty, or power so transferred, as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine, shall be transferred to the War Manpower Commission, for use in connection with the exercise of functions, duties, and powers so transferred. In determining the amounts to be transferred, the Director of the Bureau of the Budget may include an amount to provide for the liquidation of obligations incurred against such appropriations, allocations, or other funds prior to the transfer. 4. In order to maintain, to the maximum extent consistent with the effective prosecution of the war, the essential coordination and integration of public employment service and unemployment compensation functions, and to avoid any necessity for establishing duplicate public employment office facilities, the Chairman of the War Manpower Commission is directed to provide for making available to agencies charged with the administration of unemployment compensation laws, such services, information, and facilities by the United States Employment Service and its public employment offices as the Chairman of the War Manpower Commission finds will not be inconsistent with the effective prosecution of the war and as the Social Security Board finds necessary for the proper and efficient administration of such unemployment compensation laws. FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT The White House, September 17, 1942.

📜

Scholarly & Legal Citations

Exec. Order No. 9247 (Sept. 17, 1942), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-9247-transferring-certain-employment-service-and-training-functions-the.