Speaking before a gathering of over 100 people in the Union last night, Granville Hicks, noted leftist author and lecturer, reversed the conventional radical view of isolation at all costs, to one of all possible aid to Britain short of war, and "conceivably even to a declaration of war on Germany" if that is necessary to defeat Hitler and to preserve our democratic institutions.

Talking to the American Civilization Group on "The American Literary Mind and the Present Crisis," Hicks stated that "we are now witnessing the collapse of capitalism" and "only a democratic, and at the same time unified socialism can save us."

Hicks affirmed his distrust for any "leader or autocrat who sets himself up as being able to tell others what to do," and said that the example of Russia has shown us that "we must have democracy all the way, and that we can't possibly go from tyranny to a democratic government."

While devoting a major part of the talk to the voicing of his political views on world affairs, Hicks emphasized the increasing interest of the man of letters in "events happening around him." He further stated that it is the duty of the literary man of the present to "reafirm the values in democracy worth fighting for," and not to arrive at "something amazingly like Fascism by the very criticism of the same Fascism." He accused Lewis Mumford and Waldo Frank of being guilty of the latter error, dismissing these men as "calamities of the present crisis."

Defining his position as one of "finding democratic control to keep tyrannical control away," Hicks pointed out that if Fascism wins in Europe, "we can not help but be forced to adopt some imitative form of Fascism ourselves." This, he said, would occur, because a German victory in Europe would give the totalitarian forces in this country not only ideological impetus, but also material support from the "profit-moved business man.