Professor Cannon, of Harvard University, proposes international

football and other athletic contests as substitutes for war
Professor Cannon, of Harvard University, proposes international
football and other athletic contests as substitutes for war.
The adrenal glands, whose secretions excite the combative and
martial emotions, must function, and their activity, he argues,
can be directed in this way. Mr. Bryan has just now made the
proposal that we build six great national roads by which armies
might be collected for defence; the secretary of the navy has
founded a Naval Inventions Board; the postmaster general has
suggested that aeroplanes be used to deliver mail in order that
we may have an aerial corps ready for service. There may be an
element of the absurd in some of these proposals, as there
would be in using submarines to catch cod fish, so that there
might be practise in building and managing such crafts for
peaceful pursuits. There is, however, psychological
justification for aiming to direct the emotions so that their
discharge is not destructive, but of benefit to the nation and
to the world. Such would be the development of our national
resources, the construction of railways, roads, waterworks and
the like; social and political reforms; progress in the care of
public health, in education and in scientific research. It is
proposed that the next congress should spend half a billion
dollars on the army and navy. It is possible that on a
plebiscite vote, exactly under existing conditions, a majority
would vote to make the department of war a department of public
works, military defence being only one of its functions, and to
spend the sum proposed on public works useful in case of war,
but not an incitement to war.