Collegians For Compulsory Service.

(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:

Yale recently voted four to one in favor of compulsory service and Harvard will hardly let herself be outdone. The 75 or 80 per cent, who will today vote "yes" will do so from the sincere conviction of a national need. Some have gained that conviction through personal dissatisfaction with the militia system; others from satisfaction with Plattsburg; while the rest, although they may have performed no service, will yet show their willingness, on principle, to do so. This 75 or 80 per cent. has already been congratulated in advance in your editorial of yesterday; they will be congratulated again after the voting and it will be felt that Harvard has lived up to her traditions.

The 20 or 25 per cent. minority who oppose compulsory service will however still present some points of interest. Their stand has already been termed "socialistic and even anarchistic," apparently because they raised the question of what would be done with "the 200,000 who would refuse to obey such a law (as the Chamberlain bill) if passed." (Inasmuch as the country today contains well over 100,000 of the Society of Friends alone whose faith forbids them to take up arms it is difficult to see how this estimate of fact was either "socialistic or even anarchistic"). But "pacifists" such anti-conscriptionists doubtless are; "unpatriotic" they will also probably be termed, while it is not unlikely that distinguished authority will apply the opprobrious but hitherto unexplained adjective 'professional" as a further qualification to their pacifism. And in sober truth, it is sometimes difficult for even the most principled toleration to regard cranky objectors to reform with equanimity.

Under the weight of all this it might be expected that the submerged pacifists would be seen no more. But deluded as they are they will in all likelihood continue their agitation. Probaby they will do so principally outside the University where there exists a less favored but considerable body of citizens whose sense of obligation to their country is not so lively because, perhaps, they feel that they have less from that country. If the pacifist propaganda makes headway among such sections of public opinion--as it shows signs of doing--it will mean that something bigger and more difficult must be attended to before the campaign for conscription can be put through. It will mean that universal service can be successfully claimed only when there exists a lively and universal sense of obligation for benefits received--and that the benefits are not yet sufficiently apparent. If, on the other hand, such anti-conscriptionist sentiment does not materialize among some of the groups in the lower level of the social scale which have recently shown their political power and solidarity (I mean the labor unions, of course) Harvard men may well feel thankful and proud of their country and its government. At any rate they can recognize that the prompt vote here today is only the preliminary to a campaign throughout the country from which we shall learn a good deal. GRAHAM ALDIS '17.