HEAD AND HAND

While the University has been busying itself with a Republican Club, and a Democratic Club and a Hiram Johnson Club, Dartmouth College has progressed so far as to form a Club for Independent Political Action. "The sordid details of the political corruption that involves the leading politicians of both the Republican and Democratic parties" has awakened Dartmouth to the fact that "the candidates of both parties, no matter how 'good' they may be when elected, are controlled after election by big business." Action has promptly followed. The Club for I. P. A. has been organized to educate students "to bring about cooperation between labor and learning for the organization of the American Labor Party modelled along the lines of the British Labor Party."

Again the British have started something. It is noteworthy however, that the Dartmouth politicians have refrained from headlong entry into the arena; with very sound judgment, they have directed their attention to the student--to promote a closer liaison between the "intellectual" and the laborer. After all, some students may be "intellectuals" in the future. And it seems probable that a union of intellect and manual labor, as exemplified by the British third party, would have desirable results results more widely beneficial, certainly, than those produced by the more restricted interests of "big business."

The practicability of this alliance between the "intellectual" and the "worker" has been often tested out with various, but always notable results. The French Revolution might be called an example; the Russian Revolution, another, and the success of the Labor Party in England a third. Such an alliance is not as outlandish as some are inclined to think. It is, in fact, an alliance of experts--of skilled workmen, although the laborer works with a trained hand while the "intellectual" works with a trained brain. A mutual respect prevails, based on a mutual appreciation of highly necessary qualities. And it is hardly exaggeration to say that the "intellectuals" of recent years--ever since there was a real labor movement--have been almost unanimously in sympathy with labor.

College students--not yet having attained intellectuality--rarely feel, this sympathy; in attempting to develop a closer understanding and cooperation with the working multitudes, the Dartmouth Club performs a vital service. In such a combination the masses gain direction, expression, prestige--while the "intellectual" who casts his lot with them acquires the support, the dignity, the political effectiveness without which his own talents are helpless.