THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

Today for the first time in its history the CRIMSON is giving one of its candidates a chance to express in print his frank opinion of a CRIMSON competition. Although the candidate in question is in the last stages of his competition and has consequently passed through the depression and discouragement of the first few weeks, his view of CRIMSON work is not blurred by the softening mist which separates the usual graduate editor from the scene of his undergraduate labors.

This particular account of a candidates impressions is in many respects the life-like, but not uncommon story of keen contest, disappointment, weariness, excitement, and the fascination of a newspaper office. But it also suggests another factor which is particularly important in college journalism, and which goes further than anything else to explain why great numbers of American college students will devote themselves body and soul to the pursuits of news and an editorship.

This inducement to college newspaper work is evident in the secret pleasure a candidate experiences in hearing his stories discussed by his classmates, or in the thrill of knowing that he is the repository of important facts of which the ordinary student is as yet completely ignorant. Both give him a feeling of superiority, none the less gratifying because realized only by himself. There is no glory, no applause--no one is less noticed as he hurries through the streets than the quiet, inconspicuous candidate--it is merely the satisfaction of feeling that he alone of so many hundreds has his finger on the pulse of University affairs, that where the University arises in the morning to glance over the day's news it is his handiwork that it unknowingly scans.