A Sound Argument.

(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

May I be allowed to voice concurrence in most of Mr. Carver's statements?

"Bolshevism cannot be checked by argument," says Mr. Carver. He is right. It can't. And the inference is that the only other way is to kill it with clubs and guns. But Mr. Carver doesn't advocate that, for he says "If . . . the principles of peace triumph, civilization will advance." He means, of course, that we have done well to give up our attempt to smash a new system of government with guns; we should try the methods of peace and understanding, that we may not drift "toward another Dark Age."

But Mr. Carver also says, a little higher, "The only way to combat the direct reactionist (sic) is to demonstrate to him that there is more force on the side of law" etc. Meaning, one demonstrates that one is right by having over-bearing physical force on one's side. Right, naturally, is on the side of the bigger club, just as in the good old days of the cave men. Are we to have cave-man morality or the principles of peace? Mr. Carver wants both.

I should like heartily to underline Mr. Carver's division of mankind into goats and sheep: "First, those who wish to secure wealth by making men afraid to refuse it to them; second, those who work for prosperity by making themselves useful, helpful and indispensable." The first, of course, being the group of men which controls the minds of the people by owning the factories in which the people work, by owning and directing the newspapers which the people read, and by directing mounted soldiers (the Russians call such soldiers Cossacks) to intimidate and cast fear into the heart of the people; the workers are afraid to refuse wealth to these men; the rest are the workers, the producers. The first, simply, is that group of folk who live on unearned increment; the second, the great majority from whose extra toil comes the unearned increment in question. Mr. Carver is right. We must do away with the psychology of fear. We must work towards peace and co-operation. We must free the minds of the people so that they will not be afraid to refuse wealth to these men. And perhaps when these men are no longer powerful and wealthy they will go to work!

If we, too, were to admit personalities as scientific or argumentative (which Heaven forbid), we might conceivably, as a pastime, consider the Morris-chair and bedroom-slipper variety of economist in the same breath with the statesman and economist who is building a great nation on a new co-operative principle, might we not, and declare our peculiar preference? J. LESLIE HOTSON, '21.