ARMA VIRUMQUE

Perhaps it is possible to divide the objectors to any rearmament program into three classes; the first contains those who would rather see themselves, their families, and their countries martyred for their convictions; the second includes those who believe that armament is only necessary at the last moment, as a last resort, and hence is dangerous in times of peace; the third is a class which declares that the next war will be so horrible that there is no use preparing for it--civilization will be destroyed anyway.

The first, small in number, stand on firm religious ground. The second pointed to the "armed camp" cause of the Great War, and now the Munich Pact is being pointed out to them. But the third class is the one mind which can most easily be administered to by a dose of rationalization. This group reads that a single new poison gas bomb can wipe out hundreds of thousands of people and whole cities. A kind of popular propaganda has led this group to believe that the Satan vs. God war in Milton's "Paradise Lost" will be considered just a slight scuffle compared to the next Great War.

Fortunately the facts are against these defeatists. In an article in yesterday's issue of Harvard's Military Science magazine it was stated that "there is still no gas yet devised which can penetrate in lethal quantities the U.S. Army gas mask of 1921." And if such a gas were to appear, an antidote mask would follow on its heels. Current wars are daily proving that bombing raids only serve to strengthen the morale they attempt to crush and that the enemy's armies, not his cities, are war objectives. The next Great War may be greater in scope than history has ever seen, but it will be won, like all the wars of history, by the infantry. And civilization will go on.