War Talk “False and Evil” Says President Of American University

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 1, 25 November 1947, Page 6

War Talk “False and Evil” Says President Of American University

Current war talk is false and evil because it encourages a criminal defeatism toward the United Nations in the opinion of Dr. Harold Willis Dodds, President of Princeton University, America. A prophet of hope speaking in a world darkened by war fears, Dr. Dodds began Princeton’s 201st academic year by assuring 741 new students and several hundred returning upperclassmen that “war in the predictable future is an unlikely possibility.” War can be avoided: Russia and the United States can live peacefully in one world with mutual respect for each other; and the United Nations can become a workable, successful World Government, according to Princeton’s President. In a separate appeal, Dr. Albert Einstein, Chairman of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, declared that the people of the world must overcome defeatism and despair. “There are those among us who believe that man has within him the capacity to meet and overcome even the great tests of our times,” he said, “what we must not lose, or we lose all, is our willingness to seek the truth and our courage to act upon the truth.” By acting upon truth he said, “mankind may go forward to a higher plane of human development. If the angry passions of a nationalistic world engulf us further, we are doomed.” <

In calling for strong support of the United Nations, Dr.- Dodds denounced “easy cynicism” about the human race and “glib and superficial optimism” about world peace. He advocated a strong United States, backed up by a programme of universal military training and unprecedented peacetime armament, and also told students that patience with the United Nations and with Russia could produce a.peaceful world.