Faith, Hope and a Future

Americans and their government do not like to play the fool. If there is any one quality that foreigners notice in Americans most rapidly, it is generosity followed by lingering doubts that the good works are being mocked by a cynical recipient. In the minds of many Americans the poverty of Europe and the self-sufficiency of this country in 1947 do not create a situation where the act of succor would be an unqualified good. On the contrary, the simple act of feeding starving neighbors, a Golden Rule between individuals, becomes a delicate balance of gains and losses when nations go to work. And since American thought and action and even food contributions constitute an unofficial but effective extension of government policy, the question remains-is the food sent to Europe by American students an instruments of understanding or a two-edged weapon which can be turned against the United States by the pride and hatreds of the old world.

The first question to be settled is the need of Polish, Austrian, Chinese, and Greek students for this food. Facts show the tragic condition of University-attendants in these countries; on the whole they eat one-third of what an American college student consumes during the year. Next, what frame of mind are Americans seeking to instill in European students who are never too hungry to weight the bread before them alongside the future of their country or what they believe in? Is simple, vocal gratitude the sole aim of the effort? Does the American mentality ignore the psychology of charity so thoroughly that it would deem the American label on gift-food as the ultimate form of good-will missionarying? In this lone sense, Americans who demand formal notes of appreciation, or their equivalents in favors and concessions, are in great danger of becoming the suckers of America's second try at European emergency relief.

But in a realistic sense there is a great deal more to be gained in a food-relief campaign than the impression that America is a nation of recurrent benevolence. The future that the United States looks toward is based on a rational approach to the enormous problems of economics and politics and science that face planners everywhere. In the nations of east Europe and China, the United States is interested in the stimulation, the encouragement of the groups of students who will fashion their peace out of the sure mechanism of reason and not from the unstable crucible of hunger-induced irrationality. This country is determined to inject stability into these areas of extreme restlessness, but the stability is not to be the rigidity of paralysis, but the dynamic of steady reconstruction. On this healthful positivism, on the ability of young Greeks, Poles, Austrians and Chinese to break the hunger hold that constricts reconstruction, lies the peace of Europe. In political terms, this mental health provides the only fertile ground where civil-rights democracy may settle its roots. In terms of the psychology of giving and accepting, the food is aimed at the citadel of cynicism, the hungry student. Far from displays of cynicism, European undergraduates have seized on American food as the pathway to a greater idealism built around the new opportunity for national health and reconstruction.

When Harvard undergraduates contribute to this week's Food Relief Drive they are insuring an investment of time, blood and sweat made during the war. Students in Austria, Greece, Poland and China have had faith and hopes for the peace since 1937. Since their peace is firmly ours, Harvard's contribution is not charity, but a chance at self-help.