"The European Habit of Thought."

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:--

In your editorial comment this morning on a communication which challenges the motives of "preparedness," you say that it is "inconceivable how anyone can charge that the possibility of an invasion of the United States is a mere figment of the imagination."

How the fact that "all Europe is locked in a death-struggle" proves the possibility of an invasion of our country is not apparent. We have two land and two ocean frontiers. Where have any of the European belligerents been able to make an invasion from the sea? Can it be said that this war has shown anything but the futility of attempting over-seas operations against modern coast defenses and naval protection? Given adequate coast-defenses--and these I for one do not oppose--from what nation need we, after the lessons of the present war, fear any successful attack from the sea?

Invasions by land, however, have been successful. We are, therefore, vulnerable on our Canadian and Mexican borders. That either Great Britain or Mexico are a serious menace does not lie in the thought of the CRIMSON. It is the German menace which alarms. That cannot come from Canada, I take it; can it come from Mexico? I confess that I am unable to see how Germany alone can undertake any distant operations against us. But there may be new alliances! So there may be. And we might be drawn into some war in the future.

As soon as we assume, however, that we are to be drawn into war against our own will, as soon as we urge the need of preparedness against a specific or unknown potential enemy, we have fallen into the European habit of thought. If we are right in that Europe has been right, Germany has been right. Indeed, there is not a European country that has not had a better reason for preparedness than the United States. If we are to profit by the fate of certain unprepared countries," however, we can do it only by imitating France and Germany.

The issue seems clear. Either we are in no danger that cannot be met by adequate coast-defenses, besides such an army and navy as we have thought ourselves to possess, or the danger is such that we must prepare to mobilize all the resources of the country in men and means after the French or German plan. P. N. CRUSIUS '09.