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ce ale ra Sm cf ge ee ie | eee nae ee ao right its decision on a matter that will affect the life and health and continued existence of the rest of mankind? There are no words to describe the magnitude of such insolence in thought or the magnitude of criminality involved in carrying it out. Those who believe that any country has the right to make such a decision share the madness of Cap- tain Ahab in AMfoby Dick, For them Russia is the White Whale that must be hunted down and grappled with. Like Ahab in that mad pursuit, they will listen to no reminders of love, home, family obligation; in order to kill the object of their fear and hate they are ready to throw away the sextant and compass that might give them back their moral direction, and in the end they will sink their own ship and drown their crew. To such unbalanced men, to such demoralized efforts, to such dehumanized purposes, our gov- ernment has entrusted, in an easily conceivable extremity, our lives. Even an accident, these men have confessed, might produce the dire results they have planned. and more than ance has Fen TLIC ae. Ang Bod tL aes almost done so. To accept their plans and ensu- ing decisions, we have deliberately anesthetized the normal feelings, emotions, anxictics, and hopes that could alone bring us to our senses. N. ONE can guess how # sufficiently wide re- covery of moral responsibility and initiative might he brought about. Neither can one predict at what moment our nation will sec that there is no permissible sacrifice of life, either in experimental preparation of these vile weapons or in a final conflict whose very method would nullify every rational end. Certainly it seems doubtful that popular pressure would bring about such a change in government policy, except under the emotion of a shattering crisis, when it might well be too Jate. But great leadership, exerted at the right moment, might clear the air and illuminate the territory ahead. Until we actually use our weap- ons of extermination, there is nothing that we have yet done that cannot be undone, except for the existing pollution of our food and our bon genetic heritage with strontium 90 and carbon 14. But we must make a moral about-face before we can command a political forward march. ' Yet if once the American nation made such evaluation of the morality of extermination, new