The Long March

The route from Cambridge to Washington is usually perilous, as many former faculty members have proven. The statements which students in Tocsin are now formulating may sound slightly less to the point when thousands of the nation's undergraduates converge on the capital in February.

If successful, the walk will serve an important function by presenting Senators, Representatives and policy officials with a well-argued minority view on the question of disarmament. The Cold War has long choked debate on this issue. While those with a vested interest in the existing military competition have promoted it through effective means (lobbying, public relations programs, political pressure), qualified dissent has gone unpublicized. People who have found the unilateralists politically irresponsible in calling for an immediate and absolute resolution of the nuclear threat, but who could not accept the program of the arms race lobbyists, have had little political influence. Tocsin may speak for much of this group, particularly the students among them, when it makes the obvious point that military spending and thinking does not speed this society toward its expressed goals.

Tocsin's march won't urge the government to abandon its defense program, but rather will suggest to the American public that the price of the Arms Race is not simply the collective fear of a nation or the $47 billion military budget, but a distorted political atmosphere, shelters instead of hospitals, jets instead of schools, military spending instead of research and scholarship stipends, a right to strike that is shrinking in the name of national defense, and a thousand and one loyalty oaths for students, entertainers, engineers, teachers, and tenants living in federal housing. Since it must meet the cost, the American public should consider Tocsin's estimate of the bill.

The dangers confronting Tocsin's leadership, however, are very grave. They should recognize that the American people share little of their outlook on disarmament. They should further bear in mind that members of the Harvard community must not be implicated to an extent greater than their participation. And perhaps most important, Tocsin must not let the less rational (and less representative) participants succeed in their inevitable attempt to usurp the walk and use it as a platform for their own nuclear-dogma.

It is vital, therefore, that Tocsin read and consider a wide index of student attitudes at their organizational meeting tonight. Hopefully, the type of support they receive will strengthen the likelihood of a useful and pertinent demonstration in Washington.