Anti-war demonstrations, peace meetings and conferences have occupied the attention of college students throughout the country recently. The assumption in every case has been that no war is justified and that the value of a human life is far greater than that of any principle over which a war could be waged. The men who have espoused this view, however, have been young men with future years of possible happiness ahead, youths drunk with the joy of living. The old men, on the other hand, who have lived the greater portion of their lives have sat quietly by and looked on, amused perhaps. For them living for the sake of living has lost its value and only because of loyalties to some ideals do they push on towards a goal and wait patiently for their short span of life to end.

The objection may be raised that wars are not waged because of principles, but that is a matter of opinion rather than of historical fact. It is conceivable, moreover, that wars might be fought for the preservation of certain ideals over others. A war between eastern and western civilizations might very easily be of this nature. Many men when they enlisted in the last war did so, not for the sake of adventure or because of mere coercion, but because they believed they were fighting for the preservation of certain fundamental concepts they valued. In all struggles between nations an attempt is made to justify the war in the eyes of those serving in the fighting ranks by appealing to the righteousness of one cause over another. They know that in this way a greater driving impulse will be cultivated. In many wars in the past one side has lost because the men fighting have had no spirit or faith in the thing they were fighting for. This has been especially true when mercenary troops have been used or when the people whose country was being invaded by enemy armies were in sympathy with the invader. One reason why the American Revolution against one of the largest nations in the world was successful was that men were fighting for principles they cherished more than life itself. Where would the great United States of America have been today if pacifists had convinced the colonists that wars were useless?

Fundamentally it is a question of which is the more important: abstract ideals or human lives. Do we live for the sake of living or because we in some modest way attempt to justify our existence? It appears that without the driving impulse of certain ideals and aims our lives would be drab and worthless. Individuals will fight to the bitter end for the ideals they cherish and nations will continue to do so by any means they see fit, by war if necessary. If Nazi Germany finds her ideals threatened by unsympathetic neighbors she will not hesitate to defend them and her great Further will see that she does.