NEW YORK REACTS PECULIARLY TO WAR

This is the first of a series of articles by former Crimson editors who are currently engaged in journalism in one way or another. Buchwald was Assistant Editorial Chairman, and is at present on the staff of the New York Times.

NEW YORK CITY, Feb. 17-The reaction of this teeming metropolis to the war has been true to its nature; an unfathomable paradox. Since Dec. 1, we read night club attendance has considerably risen and consumption of liquors considerably dropped.

The authorities have warned the public not to seek shelter in the subways, branding them as unsafe; but according to the official air raid regulations, "passengers in trains or stations should stay there." As the most puzzling paradox of all struck us the proclamation plastered over the windows of all public conveyances: WHEREVER YOU ARE-BE CALM-BE QUIET-DON'T SHOUT-F. H. LaGuardia.

Never an isolationist, we have been worried for some time about the hazards of converting Mr. Average Citizen into a Citizen Of The World. We have felt all along that the mind of Brooklyn or the spirit of Nebraska could not hover above the oil-fields of Balik Papan or the Pripet marshes without taking punishment, that our local American heritage could not be stretched all over the globe without coming apart at the seams.

We found our fears gravely confirmed when, emerging from the subway the other day, we chanced to overhear two young ladies who were quite absorbed in the blue-clocked splendor of a West Pointer sweeping by. "Gee," we heard one of them question, "d'ya s'pose he's Australian?"

Seeking relaxation from the war effort, we dropped in at the Stork Club the other night and found, to our painful surprise, that the USO had taken over Anyhow, the place was bedecked with flags of the United Nations, all 26 of them, and our civilian attire stuck out as lonely and unbecoming as tweeds at a wedding.

While we were mulling over our highball about the New Order, the band struck up the Star Spangled Banner and we patriotically descended from our stool to face the flag.

It so happened that, flanked by a naval onsign on our right and an army lieutenant on our left, we found ourself vis-a-vis the Soviet banner, rendering homage. With the hammer and sickle firmly entrenched in the Stork Club, we thought, the brotherhood of man cannot be very far off.

That the flame of patriotism, unless carefully hedged, bursts into a roaring, uncontrollable fire, has been driven home to us on several occasions. At the modest soda fountain where we recently had our afternoon tea our request for a lump of sugar was countered by the aggressive inquiry whether we didn't know there was a war.

At the naval censorship bureau where we occasionally transact business we were stopped short at the threshold by a typewritten notice that, one step ahead, we would be shot without warning. Quite confidentially, we spied through a glass window and found neither men nor materials strategically disposed to repel an invader. Another Pearl Harbor?