WAR AND THE RED CROSS.

The success of the Red Cross collection yesterday bears abundant testimony to the sympathy which America feels for the sufferers of war-stricken Europe. Possibly some few may have given yesterday more from a desire to dodge the assiduous taggers than from the sincerest philanthropic motives. Yet we in America were less than human if we should have failed to attempt to lessen in some measure the inexpressible misery and despair which on this very day exists in the trenches and through the country-sides of Belgium and of Poland.

We are confronted with a condition, not a theory. Yesterday Harvard did its share towards remedying that condition. And yet all the aid which we in America can lend must remain the merest palliative. The countries at war are enabled to raise billions to equip men and send them forth to add to the destruction and slaughter, while they are content to leave the wounded and starving to whoever happens along. To Europe it is war, not charity. This winter the United States will have its own problems of suffering and starvation. The need for relief will not be so keenly felt as in Europe, but it will be sufficiently great to drive home the fact that from a modern war the difference of suffering between nations is only a matter of degree.

Yes, the condition demands Red Cross contributions. But let University men think a little on the theory too. Far better were it if we had never rolled a bandage or thought of an auto-ambulance, than that we were to rest satisfied with Red Cross contributions alone. If a plague were to sweep across this country, it would be necessary to care for the sick; but how much more necessary to remove the causes of that plague and prevent its recurrence. It cannot be proven, but we believe it to be a fact, that if the energy and money which are now being devoted to lessening the destruction of the present war had been previously devoted to promoting better understanding between the nations of the world and making their armaments unnecessary, we would have no war today.

The Red Cross is a necessary palliative, but only a palliative. War cannot be humanized. War must be prevented. It remains the peculiar duty of a university and of educated men to study and remove the conditions which lead to war. We have only praise for the knitting of socks and mufflers; it were more than a pity if we, having done little more, were to feel we had done enough.