Room Service, Please

Recent orders from Washington indicating that the E.R.C. and probably a large part of the R.O.T.C. will be called away from college for military training shortly after midyears have left many students suddenly face to face with the problem of disposing of their furniture. Because of the low prices of a flooded market, many will not want to sell their room furniture at a loss and many more will not want to sell at all. The houses with their limited cellar space cannot offer adequate storage facilities while already overtaxed transportation systems and unexpected expense will make shipments home inadvisable.

Influenced by Dartmouth's recent plan of buying up student furnishings or assuming responsibility for what is left in the rooms, the Harvard Student Council has tried to anticipate this problem of the student body. The Council has not yet put forth a plan, but one thing is certain: A different scheme will have to be used at Harvard. The fact that undergraduates' rooms at Dartmouth are almost entirely furnished by the occupants as compared with Harvard's desk, bed, two chairs, and a table set-up makes the problems entirely different. Dartmouth will need that furniture in case they are called upon to train men for the armed forces, whereas here, student furnishings would merely clutter up suites expanded with extra beds.

Since the University does not want student furniture, it leaves many undergraduates the single alternative of sending their room fixtures to a warehouse and there are complications that make this idea far from utopian. Those leaving in a hurry will have to deal hastily with a trucking system and a storage company. The rates for this type of transaction would be prohibitively high in most cases because the student would be paying for truck and storage space that his small amount of furniture couldn't fill.

The fact that 1400 students are due to leave soon after midyears makes this a major problem rather than an individual peeve. Large scale planning and wholesale rates will be the best solution and such a system will need University organization and bargaining power. Although this is not in the catalogue of University functions, it should help to make provisions for the belongings of the mass of undergraduates who leave for the armed forces. Many have left already, but the real exodus is a few weeks away. Prompt assumption of authority by the University by organizing a small bureau and making arrangements with a large storage concern would save money and needless confusion for many students.