Voter's Choice

It's a safe bet that most of the people who will elect a new Student Council today and next week have a hazy idea about the qualifications of their favorites for the job. The reason is that most of these people also have a hazy idea about just what the Council is.

Harvard's Council is not a truly political group; voters cannot follow a party slate, and nothing is accomplished by voting for a candidate who demands the elimination of all grades below B, since the Council has no jurisdiction over anything but the groups that borrow money from it.

The Council, as Dean Bender has said, is a "deliberative body" whose chief function is the preparation of reports, "some of which have been extra-ordinarily significant." These reports are the job of the Council's eight Committees, which handle polls, conduct investigations, mull over their findings, and finally write a detailed summary of their activities.

At the beginning of the year, each Council member is appointed chairman of one of these Committees. From then on, his personal initiative and drive are the only factors that make the difference between a Committee that accomplishes something and one that doesn't, between a report like that just put out by last year's Education Committee, and a farce like the Red Book investigation, which has bogged down for almost two years.

The Council's basic problem is one of personnel. A membership that lacks initiative, interest, or time can hardly make anything but a "do-nothing" group. While griping may go on all year, this is the only time the average undergraduate has a chance to do anything about the Council. Intelligent voting, however, is more difficult here than in, for example, a national election. A candidate can't be judged by his platform for there are no "significant issues" to campaign on, and Council elections have never been the cause of much excitement anyway.

These factors all make a wise choice an unusually difficult one. The burden is on the individual voter alone.