RAYMOND ROBINS RAPS WAR WASTE IN P.B.H. TALK

"America does not yet realize the cost of war," said Raymond Robins, Internationally famous sociologist and Red Cross worker at the Phillips Brooks House last night. In his talk on "The Next Step, the Outlawry of War," Mr. Robins attacked the wastefulness and uselessness of national conflicts.

"Russia, Belgium, stricken France lonow what war, the waster of prosperity, the harbinger of famine and pestilence, can do to plunge a nation into turmoil. Waste, extravagance, restlessness, immorality, and lawlessness are the inevitable results of war. America has felt these reactions only slightly, but all that is necessary to convince anyone of the World War's cost is to consider the statistics. Ten million men, the finest youth of the world, are dust today. Three hundred and sixty billion dollars have been squandered in the madness of strife!

Mass-Hatred Prevalent

"Mass-hatred, doctrines of race-superiority, conflicts of color and religion are prevalent in the world today. And the last world struggle was a war to end war! Nations are now racing madly for the next war. It will mean the deathblow for Western civilization. Yet the trained intelligence of scientists has been devoted these last few years to the discovery of the best means of wholesale slaughter. Poison gas has been so perfected by their work that its use in the next war will mean racial murder. Cities will be blotted out as trenches were in 1918.

War Must Be Outlawed

"Surely no one at all rational can view this impending situation calmly. War is the supreme enemy of the human race. The world is still barbaric while it exists. The next stop forward for mankind must be the outlawry of war.

"This can only be accomplished by an International Congress and by the codification of International law. War can be outlawed just as duelling, and slavery, and other infamous institutions have been abolished. War is illegal and always has been and always will be. As soon as people realize this, and take interest in preventing it, war will disappear just as surely as other primitive customs have.

"As has been wisely said, there is nothing in the world so powerful as an idea when its time has come: the time for war to end is at hand. I predict that this generation will see the last of it. Laws giving a basis of equality to all individuals and to all nations will bring it about."