Confession and Clarification

There was a time, a not too distant time, when university undergraduates preferred to take a "rational" and "realistic" view of the world situation. Disillusioned by the failure of the dream of collective security and the shadow cast by the approach of World War II, immature minds sought to escape the harsh reality of events by retreating to a speciously "realistic" ivory tower. Beguiled by the intellectual glibness of those elders who found war to be the product of profiteering, the undergraduate concluded that all war was meaningless, that international humanitarianism was only a term for national naivete, and that only in the "glorious isolation of the American eagle" lay the hope of the United States for peace. Accordingly, adolescents led peace strikes, the Oxford Union refused to die for king and country, and a not too far-sighted Crimson professed to have perceived the absurdity of internationalism.

But times have changed; and undergraduates, sobered by the war that an unrealistic "realism" made inevitable, have come to realize that the blessings of peace are bestowed only upon those ages and peoples who assume its responsibilities. The poll of post-war opinion in Harvard indicates that some ninety-six per cent of those answering are in favor of "some sort of world council or international union after the war"; overwhelming majorities are committed to maintenance of the peace by international waging of war and a Permanent International Police Force. And Harvard is not alone in its espousal of collective security. The college undergraduate has perceived his mistake, and, with a candor worthy of imitation by the United States Senate, freely confessed his error.

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With this issue, the Crimson begins a series of articles on post-war problems and planning by outstanding authorities on the tasks that will beset the peace commission. Basic to this project is the assumption of ultimate United Nations' victory. Equally fundamental is the assumption that planning for peace while war still rages is justifiable. It is true that, while the issue is undecided and post-war conditions may only be visualized, planning for the peace may only be tentative since it will lack the stamp of reality. What can be done is the focusing of public opinion upon the harsh disconsonances of international existence, the crystallizing of public thought patterns upon the major issues of a post-war world. If such may be approached planning for the peace needs no further justification. The student body has evinced its desire for international federation and planning, realization of this desire in dependent upon the examination and clarification of the specific problems which await the planners.