Exclusive Charity

Lately, it seems, high-powered national charity drives have monopolized the undergraduate's attention and gobbled up all the money he sets aside for philanthropy. This has left the multitude of seminars, social agencies, and other student benefits as impoverished as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. To acquaint the Harvard student more fully with these struggling enterprises, and perhaps to divert his funds as well, the incoming Combined Charities committee has recommended limiting future drives to student organizations.

The argument runs like this: little charities need money as much as big ones do, and since students' parents presumably contribute to the national drives, there is no sense in the students not concentrating on their own variety. And students not charities, after all, depend on students. A logical argument as far as it goes, it ignores the purpose for which Combined Charities was originally created.

Combined Charities was not meant as an engine to increase the amount of money current drives were already extracting from students. It was set up to remedy what had become an annoying nuisance, namely the endless appeals for funds that plagued undergraduates all year long. By combining all the appeals in one drive, the sponsors of Combined Charities successfully put an end to the day to day importunity. Chopping away the national charities will not prevent groups like the Cancer Fund or Red Feather from soliciting Harvard students. It will merely force them to resume their methods of yesteryear.

Meanwhile, the student benefits would gain little. For, as the appeals become more frequent and more spread but over the year, the Combined Charities will become just one among many, and its income will dwindle accordingly.

What the Combined Charities committee is trying to do is alter students' contributing habits by changing the names on the Card, a dubious task at best. Its plan will do little more than subject students to the year long solicitations of disaffected charities.