The Washington times., 1933-04-27

ent. Here are young men to Whom
the World War, so everastingly in the back OF our
minds, is myth, legend OF their tatners or eloer
brothers. Here the men who lO years from now
will be beginning to dominate the world and they are
totally innocent of the crimes and misdemeanors for
which paying-and making them pay. !hey
hardly know Foch from French, Beatty IS merely
name, Wilson a figure of the remote past they have
nothing to do with the war except this that they know
they are already suffering from its consequences
Three Prospects
My visit to Princeton for the purpose of starting
q discussion; the undergraduates wanted to talk and
let me set subject. offered them simple one: the
different worlds before undergraduate in 1914 1924
and today When told them that the inteleetuas Of
my own era looked forward to world which would
undergo disasters pheaVas and that most OF us
were interested in art with side.gance & at morality,
believed that we could have been stupid not to
forsee the and its results.
thought permanent prosperity had arrived They were
absorbed in the economic problems of today Talk was
revolution in America by changing the actual control Of
the country without changing the political forms OF
voting for Congressman and electing Presidents No
one violently Communistic or Fascist; only one
man. marked by his fellow students, was genuinely
Republican. The Democrats were largely Socialists
Norman Thomas is Princeton graduate held in high
esteem.
Not Worried
magnificent "Rise of American Civilization' of Law
renee Dennss "Is Capitalism Doomed" In the pres
expressed mild contempt for the pursuit of literature and
praised the departments of history and economies When
asked whether there wasn't at least small group IN
the college which Indifferent to politics and eco
nomcs followers of George Jean Nathan for exampe),
all so of them were agreed that such group existed
They were not worried young men. One said, laugh
ing, "My father owned coal mine-once and another
came in wth eve used to zinc mine"-or perhaps
it was lead or some other devalorized metal They
were all sons of families which ought to be still pros
porous; some of them senior members of the
expensive eating clubs which, it appears the upper
set in Princeton At my request they drove me around
to show the almost regal luxury of these clubs and
said gravely, They'll all be gone in 10 years.
What They Read
They read Faulkner and Hemingway. When spoke of
their distinguished alumnus, Edmund Wilson, they
expressed enthusiasm and more interested IN him.
because he has turned to radical politics, than IN
another graduate, Scott Fitzgerald who has remained
pure artist. They amused by the row last year
over the Princeton "smoothes" atributing the excite
ment to graduates who wanted to be as athletic
as they had been 20 ago. The resumption of foot
ball with Harvard in 1884 noted, without fury.
Perhaps the "decadent athleticism which Mr.. L. s.
Eliot found missing in Harvard has abandoned Princeton
as well.
Not one of these men-many of them due to graduate
and start looking for job in few months-has any
definite prospects in the world. No jobs waiting
and the whole social system into which they will be
the night spoke, for the next day went off the
gold standard) But it to me that these young
men-and there must be thousands like them IN other
coeges-are better prepared to face their world than
the colegians l knew in my time, who were either
sportovers coats who loved fiction or
poetry music and believed that the world existed to
keep fiction and poetry and music beautiful for the