A CHANCE FOR THINKING

On Thursday next members of the University will have an opportunity of casting in their opinions with the opinions of individuals all over the nation on two important questions: prohibition and a plan for world peace. It would be hard to over-rate the importance of these two questions; and they have both been so constantly before the American people that even the most inveterate reader of the society columns could scarcely have avoided giving them some thought in the past. Therefore the sense of the body politic as taken in these unofficial referenda should have some weight both upon its own dissenting members and upon Congress.

While not pretending to decide either question, it may be permitted to comment upon them. As regards prohibition, one may with some confidence expect the college vote to favor "more vigorous enforcement of the Prohibition Amendment" rather than modification or repeal. For contrary to newspaper editorials and periodic sudden squalls on the part of reformers, the majority of college students, like the majority of the nation, are unwaveringly dry. More interesting will be the revelation of how strong the minority is in college and how strong the minority of Atlantic Coast states is in the nation.

Unless one is a rabid isolationist determined to let the rest of the world go hang, one must admit that the Bok Prize Plan is one the whole a sound and well-reasoned document. The first provision--to join the World Court--has already received wide-spread public approval, and the many refinements which have been made upon whether this does or does not mean getting sucked into the League of Nations are cast aside by the second provision. The latter provides for a gradual widening of American cooperation with the League which would lead eventually to membership pari passu with the enactment of those reservations upon which a large number of the public has generally agreed. The plan seems fortunately conceived both in conciliating public opinion and in initiating an important step forward. But if it does no more than rouse the thought processes of the rank and file to the problem of foreign relations, it will accomplish something of no small value.