To the Editor of the Crimson:

In Defense for What, the HSU of 1939-40 has made its bid for survival in 1940-1941. The writer, who formerly regarded the HSU as the most appealing political group on the campus, feels called upon to explain a lack of sympathy with its present program. To begin with, it does not recognize the possibilities for, and the necessity of, any preparedness at this time. Furthermore, it prefers to stand outside the real politics of preparedness in order to sulk as an ineffective minority.

The debate on conscription served to highlight the main issue in the strategy of defense. That issue is whether the Army and its air arm or the Navy and its adjuncts shall be emphasized. The partisans of conscription say the Army should be stressed now, be reenforced, and eventually have millions of troops at its beck and call; and the conscriptionists have prevailed. The Senate Naval Affairs Committee, the late Smedley Butler, and many of the anti-conscriptionists, bespoke the cause of the naval forces, and they have lost the debate.

It is only natural that men should differ as to the proper defensive strategy, about whether it should be continental or hemispherical or international in its planning, about how much it should concede diplomatically before it stands firm, and so on. But Defense for What reveals an attitude as intolerant as any that is about in these days of panic, the attitude that all who deviate from its program of opposing military expansion and a general inflation of preparedness industries, are enemies of democracy, or dupes of the enemies of democracy.

Unquestionably many of those who have associated themselves with various phases of the preparedness program are unsympathetic to democracy and await eagerly the surrendering by hundreds of thousands of young Americans of their civilian privileges and immunities as they become draftees under military law. Unquestionably a goodly fraction of the most agile jumpers-onto-the-bandwagon-of-Preparedness are out to play the trend for all it is worth as a business proposition. Unquestionably, these two groups are the enemies of democracy.

But the writer suggests that a host of people who believe in democracy and in progress, though knowing that the camp of preparedness is lousy with embryo fascists and with profiteers, feel that bold strategy is called for if out country is to survive and our attempts at meaningful democracy to continue. We will not abandon our rightful share in the leadership of a vital program to those martinets and those businessmen who would pervert it into a prelude to fascism or to unnecessary war. We know what they want of preparedness--but we also know what we want. We want to present a picture of strength to the world such as will discourage our being antagonized or being asked to concede more than we can, and we know that we want to build that strength calmly, as a unified cooperating people.

We too feel that there is a lesson for us in Republican Spain--the lesson of a people who had not achieved the end of their dreams politically but were able (without permanently abandoning their aims or their quarrels with each other to mobilize democratically against danger from without.

If our mobilization is falling short of the example of mutual sacrifice willed to the world by Republican Spain, then it is up to us to right the unbalance. When members of Congress call one day for real sacrifice from the man in the street, and another day capitulate to preparedness industrialists unable to catch the spirit of the common effort, then we can simply retire such Congressmen as they come up for reelection. And if we do not, then we have failed in our responsibility. We can join in the preparednss effort to translate our objectives--as against those we oppose--into action. But if we wash our hands of the preparedness movement, then we can only expect that leadership will go--by our own default--to those we most despise.

If there is a blackout of democracy, who but the partisans of democracy will be to blame?

There is room--and plenty of it--for discussion of the ways and means of defense and the issue of defense against whom and what. But why not choose a course that is politically feasible and cease sniping at what is fait accompli? Horace Bresler '41.