TWO MINUTES OF TOMORROW

When the clock strikes at eleven tomorrow morning, two minutes of silence will fill America. All motion, all noise will stop. For two minutes a nation will stand united in thought of Peace.

It will all pass suddenly. At Harvard, the Square will rumble again, and the West Point cadets will march gayly off. Two minutes have ticked away, but their spirit will linger--to be cherished, to be fought for, to be preserved. At Boston Common, Legionnaires will march for Peace. At the Friends' Center, pacifists will debate for Peace. The Massachusetts Youth Committee will distribute exhortative pamphlets. The Anti-War Committee will preach their platform for Peace. The Student Union will counter with theirs. Every voice in the country will be raised towards one end.

America is in a healthy state. Unlike Nov. 11, 1914 it knows what it wants, and it is going to fight for it as citizens more determinedly than as soldiers. Twenty-five years ago war was something that belonged to a foreign world, certainly not to college. "Harvard Plays Football While Civilization Totters," wrote the Crimson. No word of war was to appear in its pages, Mother Advocate announced. A few inquisitive minds finally formed a University Forum in order to discuss the European conflict. Towards the second half of the year, uneasy ripples began to disturb the surface calm. The Listerine went down in May. General Wood wanted summer camps for military training. So did President Lowell and General Cole. Ex-President Eliot cried that "our flag should be somewhere in the trenches."

Looking back on those days, it is hard to believe how the storm gathered force, how a quiet country slowly swept on towards hatred and war. The beginnings were small, and the end so terrible. But the beginnings added up. Then as now, the men at the top of the hierarchy, the college presidents and the ministers raised the war-cry. The change from indifference to raging militarism was the work of a few months.

And now, twenty-five years later, must these parallels bring the same results? Two minutes on Saturday tell another story. Where in 1914 there was indifference, today there is a public devoted as never before to Peace. In 1914 there was just hope, today there is fight. Every meeting over the weekend, from the extreme pacifists to the Anti-War Committee and the Student Union, is symbolic of an aroused America. Let the interventionists and the "savers of civilization" have their say, but let every word be answered by a thousand "Nos," not for a month or two, nor even a year, but as long as the war goes on.