THE MAIL

(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. Only letters under 400 words can be printed because of space limitations.)

To the Editor of the Crimson:

Several notable examples of clear speech about the war by leaders of thought in this country are deplored in a recent editorial. With as much logic as grace you suggest one speaker as evil because you infer his association with material wealth, but seem even more at loss to explain the attitude of others whose riches lie in the field of learning. These clear voices, however, disclose nothing but the wish to advise the inexperienced and heedless concerning the facts of life. The educated freeman has a deep interest in opposing the contraction of the area where thought is free, but modern warfare, in which the machine crushes man as never before, gives peace loving people added realization of the danger to civilization of permitting war to be used for any ends other than resistance to aggression. When war is used as a means of aggressive expression, however, by a government of gangsters under whom truth is not permitted to raise its head, our interest is doubly clear. So long as the British navy maintains the upper hand, there will be large areas in the world where truth can compete with all else from Nazi whoppers down to Crimson editorials.

President Conant points out that clear thinking is not promoted by hysterical inhibitions against the thought of war. Behind the British navy we feel secure from material attack, but only when the Nazi gangsters are checked without profit, can we lay the menace of their poisonous ideology. Meanwhile the rising generation gives scant evidence of readiness to assume America's fair share in the defense of our civilization. Even those exposed to education incline to turn from the leadership appearing in the university world and take up the chant of the politicians: Be selfish. Be short sighted. Be cowardly. Be American! So may we demonstrate that the life of one complacent American is more precious than the lives of many Europeans who have mustered the courage to stand at the barrier.

Still, increasing numbers of educated people believe that we should do all we can to help the Allies. Keeping technical neutrality for the benefit of a lawless German government incapable of treating even its friends fairly is fatuous, and those who care for truth and for peace can no more defend Naziism than welcome other loathsome diseases. Fortunately for those who would rather have others stand in front, the Allies need airplanes more than men, so we need send no soldiers, certainly none who do not want to go. It would be decent to ourselves to send munitions free, most boorish to refuse credit. James Angell McLaughlin   (Professor, Harvard Law School)