(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 the present critical and unsatisfactory position in which many men in the University find themselves, it has seemed to me a useful as it is a patriotic duty to lay before such of them as are interested certain information, which I believe is not generally known at Harvard, which may enable them more intelligently to solve the problem of becoming immediately useful to the nation in its deliberately-formed determination to dispute and defeat, by force of arms, the pretensions of autocratic and irresponsible power.

Certain it is that the duty of those who believe the war is wrong is fearlessly and publicly to say so, after the manner of that enlightened group in England which, with David Lloyd-George as its spokesman, rendered such loyal service to freedom and fair-play and all that England aspires to be by publicly denouncing the Boer War and boldly refusing to countenance or further it in any way. Such a group of men, if we had it, and if they were sincere, would be of tremendous moral value in our community today. In those who believe, however, rightly or wrongly, that the war with Germany is wise and just or, if not wise and just, then inevitable, or if not inevitable, then at least much the lesser of two great evils (and this ought to include every man who cannot honestly say that the outcome of the war in Europe is a matter of no importance or concern to him, because a dishonest neutrality is morally more reprehensible than war) in such men the desire to serve the nation devotedly and intelligently is very great. It is to the latter then, but not to those who harbor any sentimental illusions about the thing called war, that the following information is commended.

As a direct result of the informal conferences of the French Commission with the War Department, the American Government has determined to take over in easy instalments a large part of the motor ambulance and transport service of the French army, thus relieving many hundred French and at the same time training a large and indispensable corps of men for service with the American army when it arrives at the front. About one hundred sections of 36 men each--a total of 3,600 men--are to be sent to France as soon as they can be trained, equipped and transported. The work of the Norton-Harjes Ambulance and the American Ambulance will ultimately be merged with the much larger and official undertaking of the American Government. A training camp is to be established under the direction of regular army officers within two weeks in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and the men will be regularly enlisted in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army, and will receive at the minimum the pay of privates, which is about $35 a month (depending on legislation now in process of enactment). In addition the men who enlist, presumably for the period of the war, will receive uniforms, transportation and sustenance.

It is the earnest, though unofficial desire of the War Department that the men who will compose these American ambulance units shall be of the highest class mentally and morally, and it is hoped that the leading colleges will contribute entire units which may be kept together and perhaps be given distinctive insignia. Fourteen hundred men have been asked for at once. All of the larger Eastern colleges save Harvard are already actively co-operating with the undertaking, and it appears that the desired number will be rapidly recruited. There yet remains, however, the possibility of forming a Harvard unit which will see active service under American officers in France in the immediate future. Enlistment blanks will be received here in a few days. All men in the University who are qualified, who are interested, and who are not otherwise irrevocably engaged are invited to communicate at once with BRENT D. ALLINSON '18,   52 Mt. Auburn Street.