In Defense-

(The CRIMSON invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

In order to show that the recent attack on the Military Science Department, made in the Debating Union, is not representative of the real feeling of the University as a whole, I call attention to the present enrollment in the R. O. T. C. courses: 386 men. The Unit at Harvard has grown steadily in the five years that it has been in the University, and this year is doing better that ever before.

The Unit is in no way an obstacle in the way of any movement for world peace; in fact, as Colonel Browning, the commandant of the local unit, pointed out in your columns recently, it is a strong force for peace; but not, may it be plainly understood, for peace at any price. It is military, but at the same time non-militaristic; for the underlying theory of Citizen's Military Training (and of this general movement, the R. O. T. C. has always been a part) is Preparedness for defence. In a practical way also, the R. O. T. C. tends to keep the country out of war, for it not only obviates to a considerable extent the necessity for a very large permanent military establishment, but it prepares for membership in the Officers' Reserve Corps, men of some education, whose every interest is opposed to war. By training themselves, they feel that they have performed in part a duty to the country and to themselves, which not only makes them of great value in any national emergency, but also eager to see that the emergency never arises.

The sincerity of the movement for World Peace in the University is to be commended highly; but it is unfortunate that it should to any extent, be it ever so small (as for example the 30 mock martyrs who voted, after a large proportion of the audience had left the meeting, that "no individual should, under any circumstances, participate in war"), desert really constructive work for the good cause, such as the League of Nations Non-Partisan Association.