Pres. Hopkins Leads Support for World Organization

ONE OF THE most important roles in national life which he has ever filled outside of his Dartmouth responsibilities was accepted by President Hopkins on September a when he became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Americans United for World Organization. The new organization is a non-partisan citizens' group to develop public support for an adequate plan for durable peace.

In assuming his new post with the felicitations of Wendell Willkie and other national leaders, President Hopkins stressed the necessity for Americans of all degrees to recognize this as the crucial moment for providing insurance against another war, and stated that the immediate objectives of Americans United would be to seek mass support for a world agency to prevent war, for Congressional candidates favoring such world organization, and for all proper measures to thwart incipient fascism in America.

Referring to his Dartmouth association, President Hopkins said, "I have very definitely in mind 8,000 young men now at war with whom I have been intimately associated and for whom I have deep affection, in whose behalf I would like to act."

Among nine national vice-chairmen named for Americans United are two of Dartmouth's alumni, William W. Grant '03 of Denver and Walter Wanger '15 of Los Angeles. Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, former U. S. Minister to Norway, was also named to this group.

REPRESENTS CONSOLIDATED GROUP

Americans United is a consolidation, recently effected, of the American Free World Association, Citizens for Victory, Committee to Defend America, Fight for Freedom, United Nations Association, and United Nations Committee of Greater New York. It is also collaborating with a large number of religious, educational and research groups, including Freedom House, League of Nations Association, and Catholic Association for International Peace. Americans United will have branches throughout the country, with headquarters in New York City in charge of Ulric Bell, director of the organization.

In accepting the chairmanship of Americans United, President Hopkins wrote to Hugh Moore, chairman of the organizing committee, as follows:

There is no reservation In my mind concerning the imperative and immediate necessity for an organization together of all those solicitous for conditions which not only will permit but will require a reign of peace throughout the world. If I can be most helpful to the purposes of Americans United as chairman of the board, I will serve in that capacity.

In making this statement I have very definitely in mind eight thousand young men now at war with whom I have been intimately associated, and for whom I have deep affection, in whose behalf I would like to act. Within my own administration as a college officer I have twice seen the necessity develop to commandeer the youth of our country for the protection of conditions under which their own generation and generations to follow them could have any of the opportunities or privileges of gracious living in a world at peace. In neither of these instances would the necessity for imposing hardship and self-sacrifice upon them have arisen if there had been any intelligent understanding among our people at large as to what constituted intelligent self-interest with emphasis upon the word intelligent. There is a vast difference between a country-wide determination to maintain peace and a determination simply not to sacrifice anything that pride of position or race or opinion convinces us we might hold.

There seem to me to be three immediate objectives to which we might commit ourselves now that would be helpful in insuring that our children and grandchildren shall not again be called upon to shoulder the burdens and tragedies of war in another quarter century or sooner. First, that we should give every possible help to movements intelligently devised for world organization upon some basis of decency analogous to principles assumed to be essential among human beings in their dealings with one another. Second, that we should seek by every means at our command to insure the election of a Congress intelligent enough and purposeful enough to give expression to the popular will on these matters. Third, that we should make available to an eager public the knowledge by which they can identify and classify those individuals and agencies among us whose acquisitiveness for power, pride of position, or glorification of race lead them to positions and efforts which head straight to fascism and all of the hideous attributes of that cult.

In his letter of felicitation to President Hopkins, Wendell Willkie wrote:

It was with gratification that I learned of your acceptance of the chairmanship of the board of Directors of Americans United.

I know of nothing more vital at this moment than that such a movement be started under such happy auspices. I am sure that you must be moved by the feeling that millions of our citizens are likewise fearful lest we bungle this, our last chance, to make a decent and democratic world. Those of us who witnessed in 1920 the makings of World War 11, are all the more fearful that the same kind of a cabal might form that scuttled peace efforts 25 years ago. Good citizens must make sure of the peace of the world and of democracy at home.

DARTMOUTH'S WARTIME SKIPPERS, President Hopkins and Captain Damon E. Cumnnings, USN, Commanding Officer of the Navy V-12 Unit, shown chatting informally on the campus following the regular Wednesday afternoon regimental review.