WAR RELIEF

The Student Council's war relief drive this week faces the severe handicap of public boredom. Exposed to the war only through a year of headlines, we over here have become inured to its details. Night bombings are no longer so scusational as they were in August. The invasion of Greece seems like old stuff. We tend to forget that each hour of bombing causes more loss of property than the fall of the Tacoma bridge. The phrase "severe damage to personnel." so carelessly bandied around by newspaper strategists, actually means that more blood has been poured onto the soil of Europe.

As for the survivors, we can only guess what is happening to them. Vague talk of "Morale" is all that we can gather about Germany and Britain. We are told that the French are starving, but we are told in statistical terms that convey no connotations of human suffering. Belgium, Holland, and Poland we suspect to be wastelands. The latest tragedy, the Rumanian cartilage, has been received in this country with calmness and even with rejoicing.

Tonight in the New Lecture Hall three members of the faculty, sponsored by the Council, will tell what they know about conditions overseas. Each of them has escaped from a conquered home-land, and each has some firsthand knowledge of what is happening in Europe, not to the armies perhaps, but to the people. There will be no exhortations and no pleas to "give till it hurts." This is a time when exhortation and pleas will do little to arouse the public. It is the eloquent facts of Europe's woe which should speak for themselves.