From a Veteran

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Permit me to congratulate you upon your editorial quoted in full in this evening's Transcript. I am of the war generation--an ex-service man, as a matter of fact--and am one who agrees with you that if any righteousness existed in the basic causes, conduct, or results of the world war, it is not easily deciphered and less easily attributed more to one than another nation. The whole thing was very much of a washout, and I think you will find more ex-service men in agreement with your general trend of thought in the premises than you had imagined. The type of critical analysis which your editorial suggests is one which should provide a reasonable immunity to the ballyhoo which inevitably will accompany the next real or imagined international crisis, and it is wholesome state of mind which, if widely and internationally held by younger generations, should be an effective deterrent to those who are supersensitive upon the subject of national honor and the like. Too often the assumed righteousness of wars is merely the result of a processof rationalization. We have to find excuses to justify the messes we get into, and the excuses must further the cause by casting credit upon ourselves. Thus in war both sides are equally righteous and unrighteous at the time, but subsequent critical reflection usually discerns a predominance of the latter. Stuart Buckins.