WAR AND PEACE

The Peace Strike withstood the ravages of yesterday's festooned hecklers. To the Continuations Committee and its subsidiary organizations must go credit for the persistence in impressing their aim on an unwilling Harvard. The spontaneity which marked the first spring party last year had to fail unless some distinct and catching new feature was introduced. It is quite evident that organized annual humor cannot last if it is pitted against an aim which basically has some logic.

Yesterday's occasion, however, does little to change the fundamental question of whether a peace strike is an effective way in which to achieve world peace. One questions seriously what effect even 150,000 pacificists can have on the jealousies and ambitions which send nations into the death-throes of the battle field. If the United States feels in a few years that the undeveloped resources in China are essential to her prosperity and Japan sees fit to disagree with her, a country jammed to the borders with peace-loving citizens will be unable to prevent a military clash.

Certainly, pressure placed on the World Court, a League of Nations, and arbitration which are about the only weapons that we possess today should accomplish more. For in this field one stands a chance of accomplishing something constructive. If the 150,000 students who staged a peace strike in the country yesterday had flooded their Congressmen with telegrams when the World Court was under discussion, they would have helped to establish the prestige of an organization which is sincerely desirous of achieving peace. But apparently their next action in the field will be a year from today when they will again proclaim peace.

The score stands even now between the hecklers and the strikers. It will not be important, even if it is amusing, who wins the third clash. What is essential is that the thousands who believe in peace have the courage to favor a practical stop to bring it about. It is not half so dramatic but it might work.