To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Allow me to congratulate you upon having stepped back into the province of irremediable respectability with your editorial of June 16 entitled: The Naval R. O. T. G. Whatever rude shocks, the CRIMSON may have inflicted upon stony conservatism in the past by espousing worthy but novel causes, it may now be freed of all suspicion of liberalism by its present docile lisping of the syllables of staunchest reaction.

Your suggestions as to the value of extended military training are, to say the least, ingenious and bold. You hint that the new naval course "can help toward making such (military) science the accessory of the average citizen and thus militate against the further development of real jingoists." A scholarly idea, suggestive of a wide historical background! Undoubtedly you remember that this very idea of training the whole nation was followed most thoroughly before the war by Germany. Can you, by any stretch of memory, recall if there was not the slightest tendency toward jingoism in that nation? If the representative nobles, commonly known here as war-lords, scorned to egg the government on, or the war-trained people displayed a marked lack of enthusiasm for the war?

At the present time, is a thorough training in military matters aiding France to a co-operative attitude toward world peace? Or even in our country, are those who have been touched by the post-war fever of military training ardent supporters of steps toward that great peace which you profess to admire? Are the graduates of the R. O. T. C. and the C. M. T. C. the most glorious examples of calm, tolerant internationally minded citizens?

Yet you believe that a further extension of this training will make us peace-lovers though you admit that "America is not by heritage or by established desire a peaceful nation." Our history shows us that no nation thinks less of peace when it wants something that only war can get but undoubtedly increased military training will, with its usual effect, kill this tendency!

You profess an aversion for "the an-achronistic chariot of war" and disclaim "any jingoistic faith in huge national armaments"; then you propose to abolish these evils by increasing the number who can drive the anachronistic chariot!. You admire the prospective course for the "idental discipline" it will afford, yet how long has the CRIMSON stood for discipline of the absolute, goose-step variety in any field?

An explanation of this change of face and Babbitt reasoning may charitably be sought in the Editor's preoccupation by Finals: Or perhaps he is stirred by an underlying desire for "humanizing the military profession": but has it ever occurred to him that there Jurks a monstrous danger in de-humanizing the vast majority who do not belong to the profession? C. L. Lundin '29.