FRESHMAN OFFICERS

The letter reprinted immediately below constitutes, in its main thesis, a peculiarly trenchant substantiation of the arguments of those who would abolish all save Senior Class officers. The conditions described by the writer are scarcely confined to the Freshman Class. They are characteristic of Sophomore and Junior elections as well; and for a complete demonstration one need only add figures to prove that it is a rare balloting which draws votes from more than half the electorate.

Mr. Read would suggest, as a solution, that the nominations be placed in the hands of the class itself. Granted that this would be a more democratic method than that in vogue, it is easy to point out the weakness of his point. In the first place, Mr. Read notwithstanding, six days should be ample time within which to file nomination papers for popular candidates. Secondly, there is small guarantee that more interest would attend the elections just because of a slight change in the nomination system. And, finally, even if interest did increase greatly, there must be a higher numerical requirement attached to the petition in order to keep the number of candidates within reason. Such new stringency would doubtless either evoke storms of protest or kill any new burst of interest.

At the root of the matter is the fact that the Class Officers in question have no function save their own elevation to importance. It is difficult to arouse interest in the election of figureheads for the Red Book. Time and again these arguments have been presented to the Student Council, and have been coupled to more significant demands for the economy which could be effected by the abolition of lower class officers. The Student Council is impervious; there is, of course, the tradition.