(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In a recent editorial in your columns you wrote, "most of us are out of sorts chafing at enforced inactivity. . ." Altho I have no quarrel to pick with the main point of the article concerning the desirability of a sense of humor' I do think the above quotation raises a point deserving consideration. The words that I refer to in particular are 'enforced in activity.'

Who can honestly say that he is being forced to do nothing when every day the Government is suggesting ways for everyone to help? Shooting at the Prussians is not the only way of winning the war. Supposing after proper training the whole United States Army should be taken to Europe and should hurl down the German Army and Capture Berlin; would we then return home without a word, satisfied with merely a military victory? Of course not!

Well, then, just why are we in the war anyway? That is the question we must keep in our minds! America is fighting to put an end to militarism and autocracy. Everything we do to accomplish this result is an activity in behalf of the United States and the world in general. But, if in our attempt to wipe out these evils in Germany we fall prey to them ourselves, what will we have gained?

By its very nature, an army is a militaristic and autocratic organization, the consummate ideal of the Hohenzollerns. That is to say, America is perfecting herself in the evil which she wishes to eradicate from Germany. Therefore, if the United States is to sincerely uphold the doctrines set forth by President Wilson in reply to the Pope's peace offer, it cannot be too emphatically impressed on every single man, woman and child that we must keep our ideals constantly before us, least in the excitement of war and the enthusiasm of our ultimate victory we fall into the well from which we are trying to pull our unwilling enemies.

No one need be inactive in such times as the present. C. LAWRENCE BOND '20.