LOCKING THE BARN DOOR . . .

While isolationist senators in Washington are blowing off steam and the nation's newspapers are obligingly headlining their sensational remarks, clearer heads are calmly reexamining the implications of America's new foreign policy. In this connection the Harvard petition asking removal of the embargo on Loyalist Spain, although ill-timed and misdirected, is nevertheless an indication of a constructive attitude toward American cooperation in the world.

Those who study world diplomacy know that if war comes in the next few years, it will be the result of some further aggressive act on the part of the totalitarian powers which an aroused set of democracies will refuse to stomach. The democracies will not themselves precipitate the crisis. But they will, if they continue their half-hearted resistance, encourage their potential enemies to drive on to the end of the rope. Conversely, a truly positive stand, coupled with an honest recognition of the necessity of peaceful change, can-or at least offers the best chance to -avert war.

Moreover, isolationist senators who picture economic support of France-symbolized by presidential approval of the sale of some 600 airplanes--- as leading the American people down the road to war, ignore America's stake in the peaceful resolution of European difficulty. Realistically speaking, it is futile to talk of isolation; in order to remain neutral in the event of a major European war it would be necessary, according to a survey made some time ago by the National Economic and Social Planning Organization, to limit all trade to peace-time levels and abandon American shipping except for narrowly defined neutral zones. Rigid control of the credit and finance activities of the country would be essential; also, in order to keep our economic system from becoming geared to a war-time pitch, with the inflation this entails, it would be necessary to control industrial and agricultural production and to fix all prices. Even this does not take into account the dangers of mass psychology. Inescapable is the conclusion that America, by reenforcing positive resistance to the totalitarian states, is promoting in the only practical way possible her own peace and security.

It is absolutely essential that public opinion come more generally to recognize these facts. Toward that end, all such agitation as is represented by the Spanish petition is valuable; but in view of recent events, some of which had occurred when the petition was framed, a far more practical attitude would oppose the mandatory provisions of the neutrality act. This miscalled "Peace Act of 1937" can really promote peace only when it makes possible discrimination against an aggressor; so long as it continues to deny American support to the forces making for world order-and thus, by default, actually improves the position of those tending toward disorder-it will continue to endanger America's chances of living at peace. Instead of petitioning in behalf of a practically deceased Spanish Republic, it will be well for Harvard men to take a more constructive line.