Pacifists 39%

When the Oxford Union startled Eng-land by voting not to bear arms ''for King or country" (TIME, Feb. 27 et seq.), echoes were soon heard in U. S. universities. A nation-wide poll on arms-bearing was undertaken by the Student Federation of America, the Brown University Daily Herald which had editorially denounced war (TIME, April 3), and the Intercollegiate Disarmament Council, whose President James Frederick Green, Yaleman, was permitted to sit in on the Geneva Conference during its siesta last year. Last week the U. S. vote was published. In 27 States, at 70 colleges, 22,627 studentssb voted as follows: for downright pacifism, 8,938 or 39% ; for bearing arms only in case of invasion. 7,342 or 33%; for bearing arms in any U. S. war, 6,347 or 28%. Most wholeheartedly pacifist were 13 women's colleges (49% against, 23% semi, 25% for) and ten State colleges (42% against, 37% semi, 21% for). Least pacific were 23 universities (37% against, 33% semi, 30% for).

Brown University's pacifism excited an investigation by the Rhode Island Legislature. Voting in the poll was forbidden at the University of Nebraska, Hartwick College (Oneonta, N. Y.) and the College of the City of New York. Because the last is a taxpayers' institution, any "Red" result would have been "extremely impolitic." C. C. N. Y. has enough troubles anyway. Last week a C. C. N. Y. student named Jacob Itzkowitz appeared before a Brooklyn justice named Charles E. Russell. He wished to reassume the name Bakur which his grandfather had given up to avoid military service./- Justice Russell sternly denied Jacob Itzkowitz's application, launched a brisk denunciation of C. C. N. Y. as a place where the taxpayers, "the orderly and decent element, are educating a bunch of young Communists and Socialists." At once C. C. N. Y.'s president, alumni and friends burst into print, flaying Justice Russell for an impertinent flouter. Later a Supreme Court Justice granted the name-change, rebuked Justice Russell. Justice Russell, rebuked, said that investigation had convinced him C. C. N. Y.'s "bunch" was "but a minority," thanked C. C. N. Y.'s faculty for "the temperate manner in which the facts have been brought before me."

That afternoon C. C. N. Y.'s President Frederick Bertrand Robinson, 49, walked across the street to Lewisohn Stadium to review a drill of the college's Reserve Officers' Training Corps. When he reached the entrance with his military science department head, Colonel George Chase Lewis, and other guests, he found a Pacifist crowd blocking his way. They jostled him, pinioned his arms for a moment. Then he raised his umbrella, flayed left & right, soon lost his umbrella. Police drove a flying wedge into the mob, surrounded

President Robinson and convoyed him into the Stadium. Said he, "They were probably Communists from outside. . . . The demonstration [was] aimed particularly at Colonel Lewis." At the review inside the Stadium, the R. O. T. C. band played on against the chanting outside: "War is hell," "Down with war."

sbThere are some 750,000 college and university students in the U. S.

/- In Russia, exemption was granted to one son of an aged father. There were three brothers Bakur, all wanting exemption. Two of them changed their names, pretended they had father named Kochcr and Itzkowitz.

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