Houghton, Butler Should Head Body To Fight for Disarmament,--Villard

"World disarmament must take place immediately," declared Oswald Garrison Villard '93, editor of the Nation and a former president of the CRIMSON, in a recent interview." A delegation headed by Alanson B. Houghton '86, former ambassador to Great Britain, and Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, should be appointed immediately to go to Geneva and demand that the world disarm. If this is not done at once, the Allies will not be living up to their word that they would disarm to the level of Germany as soon as possible.

"The situation in Germany at present is the most critical that it has ever been. The universities are overcrowded, there are no positions for the young men looking for work, married couples are forced to live apart in unfurnished flats, and the result of the 17 years' depression is that the youths of Germany have nothing to look forward to and are asking what life has to give to them.

"At this time, when Germany most needs the support of the world, France is busying herself building cement trenches and machine gun nests on her frontier, and supporting a fleet of 5,000 military planes in deadly fear that Germany is secretly preparing for war. And yet it is only the politicians and newspapers of Paris that seem to fear and imagine this war, for again and again in the frontier provinces," Mr. Villard said. "I have found the peasants and towns people in perfectly friendly relations with the Germans."

When asked if he thought that there was imminent danger of revolution in Germany this winter, Mr. Villard replied no, but that there was a great danger of civil war among the four unarmed armies that now exist, in Germany. These armies, including the 'steel-helmeters,' and the National-socialists, although not officially armed, are known to have revolvers and rifles on hand, and so delicately is the economic situation in Germany balanced that any serious outburst or uprising of the members of these armies at any point in the country, would upset and paralyze the whole economic system of Germany.

In concluding, Mr. Villard said, "Before the Spanish War we didn't worry about being attacked, and we managed to get along with an army of only 26,000 men, but now, as the greatest naval power in the world except one, which is bankrupt at present, we say we need armament.