2 Professors Sponsor Drive Against UMT

Henry J. Cadbury, Hollis Professor of Divinity, and Pitirim A. Sorokin, professor of Sociology, yesterday decried Universal Military Training as just another element of this country's over-emphasis on force and militarism.

At the same time it was learned last night that an anti-U.M.T. group called the Harvard Peace Council is applying to the Dean's Office for a charter as an undergraduate organization.

The professors are among the sponsors of the Greater Boston Students Against U.M.T. which has found considerable support from students and faculty members at colleges in this area.

Both professors called for a movement away from the primarily military approach which this country is taking towards a policy of pacifist non-violence. "At the present moment in human history when we have man the killer at large, the paramount need of man is the decrease of militarism," said Sorokin.

No Solution

Cadbury's criticism of U.M.T. was on two levels: military expediency and its influence on the problem of international peace. In the first place, the professor stated, it is in no way a solution to our present military problems. He pointed out that no nation that has had compulsory military training has found that it prevented war. Quite to the contrary, he stated, it usually leads to an arms race which ends in war. He also denied the arguments that U.M.T. would prevent casualties, produce general health, and provide the nation with a reserve of trained soldiers.

His second level of criticism was based on the idea that "U.M.T. is to be opposed because it is part of the present unfortunate emphasis on both sides of the Iron Curtain on force and the threat of force rather than upon efforts to reduce tension, to arrive at understanding, and to dispel the natural mutual fears."

The campaign against military training is having results on local campuses in this area, Richard Chartier, Boston University theology student and head of the Greater Boston Students Against U.M.T., said last night.