CRITICS AND SKEPTICS

Judging from the small number of votes cast in three days of balloting, the Bok Prize Peace Plan does not command the same enthusiastic attention given recently to the Prohibition referendum. Whereas nearly three thousand men voted on the latter question in one day, there have been so far only 750 interested enough to indicate their opinions of the prize-winning document. The overwhelming approval of the plan is somewhat surprising, considering the usual diversity of ideas noticeable in the University on any subject.

Many men, however, have not been content with a simple Yes or No. Some exceedingly interesting qualifications have been attached to the ballots, ranging from absolute disagreement with the Plan to refusal to vote for it because it was "an unpalatable does of casuistry." One man believed that the Plan was a scheme to get the American public to approve unwillingly of a form of world association which it has already repudiated in the strongest possible language" namely, the League of Nations. Another approved of the substance, but protested against the selection of a plan which contained nothing original; and others regarded the whole Prize Award as an ingenious bit of campaign propaganda.

Whatever the final vote may be--and probably the ratio of ayes to nays will not change much in the last three days--this critical commenting and fault-finding will be the best result of the referendum. It is necessary to have at least glanced over the Plan in order to comment upon it; and this requires more than ordinary exertion. And no one is more essential to this American democracy than the critical level-headed skeptic.