672 PLANES

Tuesday afternoon 672 airplanes of the United States army will parade over Boston; next week 672 planes will flaunt the strength of the U. S. air forces to hundreds of thousands of spectators, while maneuvers prove that any city can be captured or heavily damaged by raids from above.

One of the grandest spectacles ever witnessed is to take place in the air; papers will round out a week of sweeping headlines, as the aetherial swarm completes its tour of the middle and Eastern United States. Few can realize the tremendous details of organization; even less will consider that this grand stunt is costing millions of the taxpayers' dollars, in a time of greatest depression.

Peace societies the country over have justly protested the whole affair; it is defended only for being an important military experiment. Yet even the military need of such maneuvers can be questioned, when similar but smaller attacks at Hartford, London, and continental cities have convincingly proved that there is no adequate defense against attack from above. Aside from that, the psychology of the demonstration can have only the worst effects. Such shows of militarism are among the greatest existent creators of false patriotism and war-mindedness; in a few months, years of tedious labor by conferences and Leagues of Nations can be nullified. Never will there be a "war to end war", while nations devote their hours of peace to planning and exhibiting newer and more potent instruments of death.