Lowell Advocates Exclusion of Central Powers From Chapel Tablet in Letter

they felt to be their duty, and personal motives of patriotism and heroism were alike. If I am right, All Souls College at Oxford was founded for the souls of all who perished in the Hundred Years' War, and no one could think of criticising such a memorial.

On the other hand, I understand also the point of view of the contributors to the new Chapel in that they desire a memorial to the men who gave their lives for a cause, one that our country believed to be just, and fought for in that faith. Obviously a memorial to men who died for a cause is meaningless for that purpose if it includes those who died for a different or contrary cause. The same question has risen about Memorial Hall, dedicated to Harvard men who died for the Union. Confederate soldiers were no less heroic and conselentious but they fought for a different cause.

Not to include those who fell on the other side is no disparagement to them; nor does it involve a judgment on them, or necessarily on the issue involved. To say that no memorial shall be raised to men who gave their lives for a cause unless those who died on the other side are included is either to condemn the cause as unworthy of the sacrifice; or to say, like barbarians, that all warfare is glorious, and that all who died in battle are to be honored simply because they were warriors.

The resolution of the Phillips Brooks House Association indicates that the question might be different if the memorial had not a religious form. That the memorial in this case is a chapel is immaterial. If the commemoration is not fit for a chapel because it is unchristian, it is bad for any purpose. If it is right for any memorial, it is right for a chapel.

The question of a separate tablet somewhere in the Chapel is a different matter. Yours very sincerely,   (signed) A. Lawrence Lowell.