Divorce Week

Last week, amid a swarm of holiday conventions, the U. S. Youth Movement reduced itself to an absurdity. It was a week of earnest debate about war & peace, of quarrels among friends and enemies.

From it emerged a fact that the recent heyday of the American Youth Congress had obscured--youths differ among themselves as much as with their elders. At week's end, its differences clarified, Youth sorted itself into a variety of organizations and galloped ardently in all directions.

Their lineup, reading from left to right: American Student Union, organized in 1935 by Communists, Socialists and maverick liberals, by last week had lost most of its fellow travelers, was left mostly Communist. The remnant's loudest cry: no aid to Britain. Because Eleanor Roosevelt had advocated compulsory youth work camps, delegates last week divorced her (by mutual consent). They also demanded that the U. S. ally itself with China and the Soviet Union, wired President Roosevelt: YOU CAN'T PULL A WILSON ON US.

Youth Committee Against War was formed two years ago by Socialist secessionists from A. S. U. It convened in Madison, Wis., got a cool welcome. Barred from the University of Wisconsin (of which conscription's Director Clarence Dykstra is president) and the First Congregational Church, the convention eventually met in a hotel, heard an isolationist speech by Senator Burton K. Wheeler, demanded repeal of conscription.

Student League for Progressive Action was launched last week by another group of A. S. U. secessionists, led by "liberals" from Harvard and Swarthmore. This group introduced itself at a joint conference of International Student Service and the National Student Federation in New Brunswick, N. J. The League's platform: aid short-of-war to Britain and China, support of the New Deal, a demand that Britain clarify her war aims.

American Student Defense League was recently started at Harvard. At the New Brunswick conference last week it announced its expansion to six other colleges. Its program: all-out aid to Britain, regardless of risk of war.

International Student Service, Mrs. Roosevelt's new friend, is a 20-year-old relief agency which last fall reorganized itself (TIME, Sept. 23). Its joint conference with National Student Federation was heralded in the Communist New Masses as "The Plot Against Youth." But its conference turned out to be more plotted against than plotting. First leftists tried to pack its meeting, were repulsed. Then the two new Leagues (above) used its platform to announce themselves. At week's end, I. S. S. tried to join forces with N. S. F. by offering it a subsidy, was rebuffed on the ground that its offer was "not altruistic."

National Student Federation itself is a long-established organization of college student councils, made its first plunge into politics six years ago when it helped found the American Youth Congress. Last week it reconsidered. Despite a plea by A. Y. C.'s Executive Secretary Frances Williams, who admitted that A. Y. C. had made mistakes but nevertheless denied that its funds "come from Moscow," N. S. F. voted 87-to-24 to withdraw from A. Y. C. because of its "unsavory reputation" and because it was "not representative." N. S. F. also plumped for full economic aid to Britain.

National Foundation for American Youth is Gene Tunney's five-month-old archfoe of the Youth Congress. It recently published a handbook for youth called How to Stop the Junior Fifth Column.

Day after New Year's, some undergraduates went back to their campuses to study.

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