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It’s Here – Let’s Face It An Editorial Less than 24 hours after Japan had declared war on the United States, the college youth at the University of North Carolina was looking to the future with a bit more sincerity, a bit more realism. Still more important, he was meeting face to face a problem that he had hoped and prayed would never touch him. Active Warfare. Some of the more serious-minded students had realized what was coming, but the average Joe College was shocked. He was still living in a world where a date, a set of dances, a football game, were most important. He was looking forward to Junior-Seniors, and what a swell band they could get this year because they were going to spend $3,000 that week-end. College life was a Country Club. Japan’s declaration of war woke up a lot of college students. For the first time since the war started, they wanted to know what to do, where to turn, who to go to about doing their bit. The Daily Tar Heel does not profess to be in a position to give advice. Most of us who work on the paper are in the same boat as you. But we’ve been thinking about the problem for sometime, and we want to get our say off our chest. Take it for what it’s worth. Fellow student, our first impulse is to tell you to keep your shirt on, take things easy, and think the thing through clearly. Forget about being a playboy. If college students continue to play the lotus-eaters, if they keep up their shallow superficial, pseudo-sophisticated attitude of unconcern, if they continue to defer consideration of the war and the after-war, the time will come when they are called upon to help determine the policy of their country, and they will have to answer. Not prepared. It is not only desirable, but it is imperative that the American university undergraduates begin immediately to prepare for what is ahead. With a little effort by their parents, directed by the universities, and a new outlook on the part of the students themselves, we believe they can do it. What The Student Can Do. Students can realize their importance in the world of tomorrow. They can become aware of the fact that there is no other George to Do It but themselves. They should stay here and prepare themselves, realizing that when the war is over, win or lose, boom or depression, there will be a tremendous shortage of trained, sensible leadership. They should realize that the University is no Country Club, (Continued on page two) no four-year vacation, before they begin living; but that it is, and has to be, the training ground of the leaders of the future, and that it is not their privilege but their duty either to make the most of their training or to get out and quit wasting the state’s money. They should see that it is not “smart” but foolhardy, selfish, and criminal to fritter away their time, to refuse to consider the problems ahead of them, and to laugh at those who do not. If they are waitng call in some special service they should clear their inquiries through Mr. S.W.J. Welch in Dean Bradshaw’s office. In this manner one letter can clear 25 boy’s problems. Me. Welch is there to serve you. Take advantage of it. What The Older Folks Can Do. All the education in the world will do no good, however, if students can still see no hope in the future. It is up to the government and to the parents of the students to provide the makings of that. A great source of disillusionment of the present undergraduate was the Great Fizzle of 1918, a peace that was lost after the war was over, the Treaty of Versailles; a great conditioning factor in their hesitancy about entering another war in fear of another Versailles. And as yet, the leaders of this country and of England have given no assurance of any sort of peace settlement to work toward, and students can only suspect that caught in the inevitable wave of post-war reaction, they will be led to another vindictive, over balanced, retaliatory peace. The students of America are not willing to fight for another system of one-sided world domination, even if it is by the British Empire and the United States, because such an unnatural state of affairs can only be maintained by fighting a war every 25 years or so. The parents and leaders of 1941 must quit bumbling around, trying to justify a peace of treaty which the test of time has proven a flop. England and France dictated the last peace; America should dictate this one. Another point of disillusionment for young people has been the baffling, profiteering, and nickel-grabbing of Big Business, labor and the government itself in connection with defense spending. Knowing as they do that this placing of personal interest above community interest, even at a danger to the very life of the community, was the only cause of the fall of France, they can only view such actions with foreboding. We believe that if the government itself takes the lead by untangling its own messy defense organization and stopping the scrapping over jurisdiction, supervision, and control of defense funds by government agencies, Big Business and labor will sooner be inclined to lay down the axe until the war is over. It is not through selfishness that we suggest the next move the government can make: stop drafting college students. Let them finish their college education, especially if they are seniors. In view of the fact that the ten years of adjustment after the war will probably be just as important for the long-range good of the country, the snapping off of education of future leaders seems to be a short sighted move. What The University Can Do. Because they are the closest to the students, the universities of America will necessarily be the most important factors in this crisis. We have previously pointed out the necessity for more intelligent discussion by present day students, but, of course, we don’t expect everyone to sit around their lunch tables with long, blood-houndish faces mulling the weighty problems of the world, and we don’t expect the Order of the Grill to spend all their time in deep contemplation of the great issues, but there certainly should be more opportunity for serious consideration and discussion of them. A series of forums where students can meet with faculty members would help immensely. We are doing some of this now, and that’s fine. But it isn’t nearly enough. The University can plan for the future. No matter who wins, for a long time after the war, this is going to be a sick world, and will continue to be sick unless there are trained and sensible college graduates ready to help cure it. That is why it would be of immense value in the future for University courses, where possible, to be planned, seminars organized, or at least some work done in study of post-war conditions. If American educators wait until the war is over to start training for the reconstruction and the peace, it will be too late. Sociologists must begin to study post war sociological conditions, psychologists to lay plans for restoring the war-broken citizenry, economists to seek ways to ease the impact of a disrupted war economy. In almost every field which contributes to the direction and government of the country, work should be done now to make this peace a better one. Students should be helped, not babied; directed, not indoctrinated. They are wise to the World War propaganda techniques, and it is about time the older people woke up to the fact. You can’t feed today’s students on gauze and vague promises. They are going to fight the war, but they want to know what is coming out of it. So that’s what students need today, and that is what can be done about it. They need a realization of their own position, and that can come only from them themselves; they need a hope of the future, and that comes only from men now in power; they need the training for the future and that comes only from universities. All must work together, and all must carry out their immediate tasks. They must tackle their new job with a clear conscious, not act without thought, and keep their shirts on so that when it is over this time there will not be a recurrence of what took place after the last war.