Let 'Em Eat Cake

Several of the recent allegations of the Lowell House Committee in its letter to the Student Council Food Relief Committee seemed ill-advised. They had apparently forgotten that the foremost issue has been that underfed Europeans need sustenance and that it is worth some sacrifice on the part of better-nourished Americans to supply relief. Besides being unsound economically in supposing that one can have his cake and send it to Europe too, the position of the Lowell House Committee leaves room for doubts about its awareness of the food crisis.

Not that the misconceptions of the Bellboys are uncommon. Some others will believe that the food-saving measures of the past term have been "entirely nullified by students purchasing in Square restaurants." The fact is that local restaurateurs have not noticed it, and in no event could food eaten outside set off much of the 1600 pounds of critical flour actually saved for each of four weeks last term. The strictly Lowell House complaint about food quality makes a hollow sound when the House Committee claims that discontent was "traceable directly to the forced food savings program." The House had long been notorious in that respect.

But the Lowell group made one claim which they may well be able to prove--"that there are sufficient men in College to contribute from 25 to 40 cents weekly"--and upon consultation with the Food Relief Committee yesterday, they agreed to lead a movement among the Houses to collect voluntary weekly pledges. Response through the small collection boxes at dining hall doors has not matched the willingness of the student to make scarifies beyond the simple foregoing of critical foods. Savings in milk, meat and desserts proposed in the original Council ballot were essentially more money-savers and will not be openly recommended, although such reductions would call for little noticeable belt-tightening. But with a well-organized collection of direct money contributions, students should find the assumption of their responsibilities even more painless.

What Lowell House investigators might have found to criticize had they been more single-minded in their effort to help the food saving plan would be the devious execution of the program by University officials closely connected with the dining halls. Showing no conception of the spirit of the campaign, they have included more costly, and sometimes superfluous fruit to substitute for salad at dessertless meals, and have absurdly insisted on offering margarine and jam when there is no bread. In contrast, higher administrative officials for the most part have cooperated to the fullest and have turned over to the Food Relief Committee the $2400 estimated in advance to be the dollar value of the food reductions.

Objections to campaigns for voluntary sacrifices by the well-off to make good the lingering devastation of war will continue to arise from Americans hungrily hoping for the full fruits of peace. May they all be resolved as constructively as the energies of the Lowell House Committee. The ballot soon to be presented the student body has behind it the weight of a successful program.