FOOD AND GOVERNMENT

Experience in our own dining halls has given us some grasp of the delicate hazards that are implicit in feeding hungry mouths. However, not until reading of the difficulties in the national capital, was the full import of the situation brought home to us.

First came the shocking discovery that the napkins were initiated U. S. S. R. For the moment it was forgotten that they were used in the United States Senate Restaurant and it was feared that the elder brothers of the N.S.L. had been at work. When the situation was realized things had gone so far that the only way to avoid a nation-wide Bolshevist scare was to have the linen marked plainly "Senate Restaurant."

No sooner was that settled than the pie problem raised its ugly head in the House Restaurant. Each sliver (and it was charged that they were not regulation size) cost fifteen cents. Members protested that this was plutocratic and unjustifiable. With this demand went one for a deduction in the price of coffee from ten cents to five.

So far it can not be ascertained whether these demands will be met. But we hope they will not. Not that we disagree with the abstract principles involved. But the days of Jeffersonian simplicity have vanished from Washington. It is now a de luxe city and the de luxe spirit has prevailed with especial verve during the last two years. Life should be lived there with a fine gusto and grand disregard. Why haggle over the price of pie when money is such a trifling matter? Congressmen should learn to relax as the rest of us have. They should have another cup of coffee and another piece of pie and remember that only a Conservative would think in terms of nickels.