BERTRAND RUSSELL SCORES INTELLECTUAL QUARANTINE

"I have heard of this movement on the part of the undergraduates to bring radical speakers to the Harvard Union. I approve of it heartily, it is a most commendable sign of the awakening of liberal thought that must come in America. But I fail utterly to understand why it should be necessary. This attitude of the authorities in laying down an intellectual quarantine, seems to me childish, simply, childish."

Impossible In England

Such was the opinion of the Honorable Bertrand Russell, distinguished publicist, essayist and scientist, when interviewed yesterday at tea by a CRIMSON reporter. Mr. Russell expressed his desire to speak at the University if arrangements can be completed. "I must warn you, however", he said, "that I lost the last shreds of respectability, so long ago that there may be serious opposition to my talking.

"Such a situation as this would be impossible in an English university", Mr. Russell continued. "It can be attributed in part to the greatest misfortune with which year American colleges are afflicted--Boards of Trustees. When an institution of learning is governed by a group of financiers and business men, any interests are served but those of liberalism. Of course, it is true that our younger English universities are man aged in much the same way, but each college of Oxford and Cambridge is owned by its professors and consequently managed to suit their interests--interests which, you must admit, are more liberal than those of a group of successful merchants.

"This state, of affairs in Harvard if I understand it, is particularly significant being, as it is, a reflection of the attitude of the American people. The most frightful thought to us in England is that you Americans seem not to release that you are the dominant nation of the world, and that from now on it is your thoughts and your institutions that will guide those of Europe.

"America is not ruled by the Washington government", Mr. Russell said. "It is Oil and Morgans that rule you. America is on the crest of a worship of machines and industrial efficiency. An empire of American finance over the whole world, liberal and cruel to the highest degree, is the nightmare prospect before the world. The only hope, so far as I can see, lies in a great development of liberal feeling and thought in America. The power of financial magnates rests on public opinion and it is such movements as this that you are starting here, that will save the world."

Favors Labor Party Here

This is Mr. Russell's first visit to America since 1914 when he was special Professor of Philosophy at the University. Even in this short trip, he believes he has seen evidences of a recovery from the conservative apathy, that existed here before the war. "Of course I would like to see a socialist labor party in America. The Labor government in England is going to bring about few vital changes in the social structure but the very fact that it is in power is a sign of a true liberal attitude. And America is certainly progressing in this respect. It is conflict that brings progress and now that the radicals are splitting from the conservatives, issues will be defined and clarified and the elimination of misunderstanding will bring about a more tolerant, more liberal national attitude.

No Personal Liberty In America

"You have such a socialistic state over here", continued Mr. Russell when told about the recent dispute over the R. O. T. C., "that you have no personal liberty. The individual is too prone to follow the crowd. So although I approve of pacifist movements in universities, I myself would be much too individualistic to bother about abolishing your Military Science 'Department, I would merely refuse to have anything to do with it."

Mr. Russell talked at length over his tea about the industrialism which he believes to be the keynote of modern civilization.

"Great captains of industry are the saints of our modern religion. They may be as personally unpleasant as many of the old saints but their mechanistic outlook dominates the world today, and especially America."

Has Spoken At Dartmouth

This attitude must be tempered, according to Mr. Russell; inventions must be used to produce leisure rather than unreal wants, and liberalism must enter into the machine. Until this happens, industrialism will be, like every false God, a curse.

Mr. Russell spoke yesterday before the undergraduates at Dartmouth and he is very much interested in the radical movements that are to be found in some American universities. He told the CRIMSON reporter of the days when he was a student at Kings' College, Cambridge. Socialism was then as frowned upon in England as it is in America today. A prominent radical came to speak to the students and at the close of his lecture, the audience asked him if he were a socialist. He had the courage to reply, "Yes, sir, an out-and-outer." Instead of the booing he had half-expected, he got cheers from the students.

Difference Between Old World And New

"It is this fair-minded attitude towards a new idea," said Mr. Russell, "that marks the difference between universities of the Old World and those of the New. It goes farther than the toleration of a radical speaker. In England, a student is taught to think; here, as far as I can see, he is taught to accept an opinion."

In 1910, Mr. Russell was a professor at Cambridge and in one course he had a rather small class. Mr. Russell's theorles were distimently opposed to the conscription of soldiers and his class sided with him. The class would accompany him to the police station every day to see the latest one of their number to be arrested. "The authorities started at A and worked down the alphabet, taking a man each day," said Mr. Russell, "until I had no class last."

Arm-Chair Liberals Useless

"The results of a wide-spread movement towards liberalism," Mr. Russell summed up as he prepared to end the interview, "especially in American universities, would be inestimable. I admit, of course, that a reformer who sits at a desk and evolves Utopian theories is, in the final estimate, useless. But once a student has achieved liberty of thought, his next step is to stump the country trying to convert people, and then he becomes a factor in the progress of civilization.