WAR AND PEACE

For the Army weekend, a small group, which represents a bare majority of the Liberal Club, has arranged a monster program, intended to combat war. To start the proceedings, it has decided to hold a mass-meeting on Boston Common this Saturday morning, for the discussion of the path to peace; at the meeting, "The Horror of It," a collection of choice photos of corpses and the like, will be sold. This gathering, it is said will be an intercollegiate affair; at least, some Wellesley students are expected to attend. Afterwards, if the plan goes through, there will be another meeting on the Widener steps, timed so that the participants can fall in behind the Cadets as they march to the Stadium; the Liberal Club members, a score or more strong, will swing along behind the West Pointers heckling and harrying them, and otherwise waving the olive branch. Permission to do this was to be requested of President Conant; he could not be reached, and Mr. Luce refused official approval, at least for a meeting at a time when the Cadets were on the march. The Club, however, has voted to carry out its plan whether authorized to do so or not.

One might, of course, question the good taste of sending a jibbering crew to dog the heels of the guests of the College, even if the procedure were conceivably efficacious in the cause of peace. The debatable value of flaunting pacifistic erudition in the faces of the denizens of Boston Common might also be considered. It might even be possible to see in the Club's refulgent project a bid for publicity, which could very nicely be gained merely by suggesting the scheme without running the risk of putting it into practice. But when it is remembered that these few febrile souls are not backed by the Club's officials, little else is to the point. So far as these independent members are concerned, at least, one may borrow a phrase from Saki, and say: pacifists "are not made but still-born."