UNITED STATES NOT YET READY TO LEAD WORLD

All party affiliations and other limitations on unprejudiced thinking must be set aside if the United States is to keep its head in the crisis it is now confronted with, Professor William Allan Neilson '96, of the English Department, said in the course of the Phi Beta Kappa oration which he delivered at Columbia University Tuesday evening.

Professor Neilson said he did not wish to see this country plunged too recklessly into the leadership of the world, but would have us keep in the narrow path of truth both in our relations with other nations and in our internal affairs.

"A true sportsman," he said, "takes little satisfaction in winning a race against an opponent who has broken his leg, and those who have cherished the loftiest hopes for our future academic development would, I believe, prefer that we wait a generation or two longer rather than that we should align ourselves with the commercial interests that are hovering like carrion vultures above the battlefields of Europe."

Professor Nielson characterized as disastrous for the spiritual life of Europe the fact that at the outbreak of the war the leaders of thought abdicated their thrones, surrendered their intellectual independence and led the way for a general capitulation before the forces of national prejudice and hatred.