Mene Mene Tekl Upharsin

Ed. Note-The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld).

To the Editors of the CRIMSON

Among all the controversies raised about the chapel, the central fact remains unobscured. If, as is generally believed, the chapel is to be dedicated to the Harvard dead in the World War, no argument can change the fact that the three Germans are as well qualified as any other men to have their names inscribed there. If it is really dedicated to the Allied cause, the fact should be honestly admitted. In that case, the building should be frankly consecrated to the war to make the world safe for democracy.

The chapel, then, must be devoted to the patriotism of Harvard men or the aims of the allied powers. The two are entirely different, and it is sophistry to try to combine them. Due to recent historical discoveries, few intelligent people have much respect for either side's causes, as such, but regard for the men themselves can never be diminished.

To commemorate the Allied and German soldiers on separate plaques is a miserable compromise. If the object of the memorial is to glorify the tarnished catch-words of 1918, the Germans should not be named at all. If it is a monument to patriotic Harvard men, any discrimination between them is odious. H. C. Hatfield '33.