PEACE STRIKE

Running off its peace meeting with dignity and decorum that belie the name of "strike", the Student Union's Peace Committee can at last take credit for raising Harvard pacifistic celebrations to the level of reason and respectability. An attitude of calm and mature deliberation held sway in Sanders Theatre yesterday which marks a decided improvement over the late reign of terror on Widener's battle-scarred steps and will inevitably do more real good for the cause of peace. Professional patriots like the Legion cannot attack the gathering at Sanders as they handled rebellious Chicago school children, or obfuscate the appeal of men such as Prall and Darvall by throwing a cordon of tin-hatted warriors around the battlements of Memorial Hall. The quest for peace can gain real effectiveness if reason, not emotion, prevails.

In advising students of the need for hauling the enemies of peace into the limelight in order to attack them, Professor Prall put his hand on the heart of the whole problem. The causes of war, especially among democratic nations which are supposed to work out their own destiny, are so ephemeral and hard to distinguish that historians years later are at odds as to exactly what started the conflagration. The mass of the electorate can judge of economic rivalries with little accuracy, and the patriot and potential profiteer look much alike. So far the Senate munitions investigations have made the best efforts to expose the men and forces working for hostilities, and these-have bogged down in political mud from time to time. Yet work along this line is an intelligent course for peace action to take.

But when Mr. Darvall shifted the scene to Europe, he tried to identify American interests too closely with British diplomacy. Despite the many natural ties that bind us with Britain, it is hard to see how U. S. intervention in the League would do any thing but complicate an already muddled situation. Our Geneva envoys would inevitably get involved in pulling British chestnuts out of the fire, with eventual entanglement in another European war an open possibility.

Starting their campaign against militarism in education with a commendable bang, the meeting went on record as supporting the Nye-Kvale Bill for abolishing compulsory military training in public institutions. At the present time it is hard to believe that the R.O.T.C. could grow into a warlike Prussian order, fomenting national "honor" and international hate. But there is no logical reason to discriminate against students at government colleges, making them bear arms against their will. Indeed the popularity of the training is enough to justify removing the compulsory feature. But at any event the solid work of the Peace Committee, coupled with the more spectacular efforts of the V. F. W., should make the peace movement at Harvard more effective than it has been in recent years.