Progressives for War

The first outright declaration by an organized group of U.S. educators for full U.S. participation in the war against Naziism came from the advocates of Progressive Education--men who had long been considered education's most confirmed pacifists.

The Progressive Education Association has among its 10,000 members many Quakers who abjure war. But last week directors of P.E.A. endorsed a manifesto signed by twelve of the 14 editors of P.E.A.'s journal of opinion, Frontiers of Democracy.

No Stalinists, they had made their decision before the Soviet Union was attacked, having discovered that there were other things they hated more than war. Among the editors who drafted the statement were mild-mannered old Professor William Heard Kilpatrick and embattled Textbook Author Harold Ordway Rugg. Declared Kilpatrick & Co.:

"We advocate full responsible participation on the part of the United States in the democratic struggle against the Axis to the extent, if necessary, of actual entrance into the war. . . . We reject the doctrine of historical inevitability. ... So far as we can see, neither totalitarianism nor democracy is fated to prevail in our age. Which of these will emerge . . . will be determined in large part by the present efforts of the supporters of democracy. . . .

"We ask that the peoples of the Axis nations be immediately assured that once hostilities are over they will be invited to share in making the plans for the peace and the new international order."

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