Lift Up Your Eyes

Out of the south they came, slipping through the low scud over Concord, over Claremont, over the Junction, and over Hanover: 36 planes of the Army Air Corps, throbbing like malignant bees. Perhaps they followed the thin silver ribbon of the Connecticut up from Springfield, maybe they streaked up the distended threads of the B. & M. from Boston. At any rate, it was perfectly evident that the Army Air Corps was protecting New England from the "enemy."

As they swooped over the College, brave and resplendent in the blaze of glory that gleams from all the toys of modern warfare, we heard a freshman say, "Well, it's the Air Service for mine in the next war." We wondered how many men craning their necks from other vantage points on the campus were saying the same thing. There is something unexorably alluring about an effective tool for war, whether it be a sword, a pistol, or a submarine. And once you've got the weapons, there is a well nigh uncontrollable desire to use them, as the world of 1914 bears witness.

Aristide Briand once said that the people never want war. Nor do they, save when their imagination is stirred by things like flags, brass bands, leather-larnyxed five-minute men, and armaments. In maneuvering over New York, over Boston, over Springfield and all the larger cities of populous New England, the War Department is undoubtedly giving its pilots much training in group flying. It is a question, however, whether this obvious benefit is sufficient to offset the subtle internal poisons produced by the sky-wide and handsome inctics of the air armada. We are not grateful to the government for yesterday's little circus. The Dartmouth.