Despite the growing sentiment in the country against participation in the Olympic Games to be held in Berlin next year, it is quite clear that the American Olympic Committee is proceeding in the conviction that American athletes will take part in the games.

            Brig. Gen. Charles H. Sherrill, American member of the International Olympic Committee, has warned against the Olympic agitation, stating, "Consider the effect on several hundred thousand youngsters training for this contest throughout the United States, if the boycott movement gets so far that they suddenly are confronted with the fact that someone is trying to defeat their ambition to get to Berlin and compete in the Olympic Games."

            This statement from Gen. Sherrill is very surprising.

            In 1917 thousands of American youths were willing to sacrifice their lives in the hopes of making the world safe for democracy. Yet today, General Sherrill thinks, our young people will refuse to sacrifice personal glory for the same ideal. In 1917 young people thought it noble to die in a war against the threat of tyranny, yet today, he maintains, a trip to Berlin means more to them than democracy and freedom. For the sake of individual distinction, the General believes that they are willing to pay homage to a Nazi flag, a flag which stands for dictatorship and suppression, which disregards and denies true sportsmanship, and which opposes all that democracy upholds: liberty, fraternity, and equality.

      General Sherrill misinterprets the sentiments of young people today. American youths do not wish to join in contests with representatives of a regime that repudiates not only the Olympic standards but all other standards of fairness and decency.

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May 20, 2004