Is Everybody Happy?

No matter what anyone tells you, Harvard has lots of money. If you want some, all you have to do is to ask the Administration--preferably a Dean, because Deans enjoy helping students. Besides, it's much more fun to give money to deserving student organizations than to see Houses, theaters, and another drab buildings completed.

Happy, contented students are quiet students, and the Administration's policy toward undergraduates has always been pacifist. The violence of student riots shakes the gentleman tradition of Harvard to the core, and disturbs University Hall--especially the Deans, because Deans dislike noise.

There is no better way to make a student happy than by giving him money. Having discovered this fact, the Administration also found that a large sum of money will keep a lot of students happy for a long time. The Student Council has known for a long time how happy it would be if it had more money. But now that the Deans have also discovered this fact, it seems likely that the money will soon begin to flow from University Hall to the Council's coffers in P.B.H.

We don't mind the Administration's giving money to the Student Council. Everyone knows it is a deserving organization, and that it needs money. And, of course, it would make the Deans very happy to know that they are helping students. Students must also be happy at the news that they will no longer be buttonholed and asked for a donation by Council members at registration. Anyway, it was never much fun for the Council to claim to represent the students and then not receive much support from them.

In the past the Council has served a purpose within the Harvard community through its debates with University Hall on issues like parietal hours, board rates, and parking. Sometimes the students, through the Council, have won. And while no one can say for certain that the Student Council has prevented any riots it has served as a means by which student protests have reached the Administration. Those days are gone forever. Deans who believe they are helping students are not likely to listen to their troubles. Whatever influence the Council once had with the Administration as a student organization representing student sentiment will have been exchanged for the confines of financial security.

For our part, we have always looks with a great deal of pride and admiration upon the days of spontaneous student uprisings, and it may be that this form of student protest will again come into vogue. The Yard has been all too tranquil in recent years, and one can only hope that a substitute outlet for the Council as a means of expressing academic criticism and middle class escapism will be found. As one solution, we have always favored anarchy at Harvard because it affords so many students the opportunity to take an active part in government.