War Talk

            This issue of 'Spotlight' contains two articles about war.

            The first is an account of the passage in the House of Representatives of the War Department appropriation bill for one of the largest outlays for strictly military purposes in the peace-time history of the United States. The second article outlines the plans for participation of the Brooklyn College Anti-War League in the Brooklyn Intercollegiate Conference Against War and Fascism.

            Anti-war activity is not new at Brooklyn College. During 1934, there was a Peace Chapel addressed by prominent faculty members, a two-day Anti-War Conference attended by hundreds of teachers and students, as well as a college-wide anti-war strike when thousands walked out of classrooms to demonstrate for peace.

            With but rare exceptions, similar expressions of strong anti-war sentiment have characterized the activities of hundreds of thousands of students in the schools and colleges throughout the nation.

            It seems, however, that the opinion of these hundreds of thousands of student-citizens is thoroughly disregarded by those who pass appropriations for war funds. In fact not only did the Representatives increase the general allowance for military preparations by more than sixty-two millions, but they also specified that $3,453,000 of this sum is to be used for military training in the colleges.

            If this action on the part of our Representatives is typical of the reception that is accorded expressions of student opinion, the Anti-War Conference may well adopt for its motto the line from the Gettysburg Address: "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here."

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May 20, 2004