To the Editor of the Crimson:

In order that the students of Harvard University may fully recognize the character of the war psychosis or hysteria which is now driving the United States inevitably to war and which has been influentially stimulated by certain members of the administration of Harvard University, let me quote the following paragraph from The Mysterious Stranger written many years ago by Mark Twain:

"I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his month; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statement will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." George Holden Tinkham '94,   Rep. 10th District Massachusetts.