Buy a Bond, Mister?

War stamps and bonds go on sale again this week for the first time since last summer's disappointing and disgraceful fiasco when undergraduates gave an expert demonstration of "Too Little and Too Late." It is hard to believe that students here are less concerned about the war than Princetonians or Elis, but unfortunately, that must be considered a part of the story. There is no need to go into either the Economics A nor the Archibald MacLeish arguments for the purchase of government securities. They are well known and convincing enough to all. Everyone from the announcers for the soap operas to the roving official propagandists for the Treasury Department are dinning them in America's ears morning, noon, and night. Still Harvard men remain aloof, and ignore what the man in the street realizes is vital to the maintenance of our way of life. While the laborer gives ten per cent of his salary in bonds and stamps, undergraduates go to the movies and the Eliot House Grill.

Together with radical changes in the traditionally indifferent attitude of students must come a shakeup in the methods of organization and soliciting. Special ventures such as charging five ten-cent war stamps per head at House dances, or urging Coca-Cola to contribute ten cases of their product, and selling the bottles at ten cents in stamps at the fall balls, should become a frequent occurrence. The forth-coming door-to-door pledge drive must be complete and efficient, covering every room. If the present system of collection at House dining halls has proven itself the most effective, the salesmen at the table should be more aggressive. They should lay down Life, Click, and even Time for their period on duty, and make a real personal effort to peddle their products. And, though the University has made it a policy never to urge officially that students contribute to "good causes," they should take a hand in this one. Too much is at stake to let precedents stand in the way.