Bandied from Clarence Streit's pillar of zeal to the post of public apathy during the past seven years, the vital issue of world government--if, when, and how--has recently emerged from its shell of naivete to blink its eyes to world political realities. Out of the recent merger of six large American organizations--student and general--pledged to some form of strong federal international organization, some hope may now be advance that the confusion over this question among its adherents may be dissipated. The lessons learned by those who formed the United World Federalists at Asheville, North Carolina, two weeks ago, if used to combat both the pillar and the post type of thinking, can become a tremendous weapon on the side of a durable peace.

In the past, three factors have been responsible for the ineffectiveness of the federal world government movement: the division among the groups advocating it, the attitude of stubborn opposition to the UN by many of those groups, and the feeling that it was an anti-Russian screen. The Asheville conference was a notable success in that it united six of the most active groups into one organization whose policy is to advocate world government through the UN while realizing the necessity of including the Soviet Union in its proposals.

As a result, the supporters of this type of world organization can now include those who recognize the good in the UN as the only existing international body but at the same times realize its inherent imperfections. They can also encompass those Americans who favor world government but not at the expense of creating an unbridgeable gulf between Russian and this country.

Now that this movement has widened the scope of its appeal, it must turn its immediate attention to the biggest job with which any organization has ever been confronted. It must prove to millions of skeptics that the dangers of an atomic war in a few years are so great that only such a departure from the present philosophy of diplomacy and international cooperation can prevent it. The stakes are the highest possible: human lives. Anything less than full participation in the discussion of this issue by every thinking American would be the most foolhardy form of indifference.