INDIFFERENCE AND ELECTIONS.

From time to time, the accusation has been leveled against the college man that he has either shown a tendency to stand aloof from politics, or, what is worse, assume an attitude of bored indifference.

Whether or not a man considers it advisable to take an active part in politics is an individual affair; but whether or not he deems it advisable to remain indifferent on political matters is not an individual, but a public affair. Under some forms of government, this latter statement might not be true; but under a representative form of government it is most emphatically true or that form of government will cease to exist; simply because it is based on the assumption that its adherents seriously desire to be a part of it. The indifferent man may have many responsibilities, but he cannot include among them a vital membership in such a form of government unless he exercises what is essentially that government's most fundamental apology for its existence--the duty and privilege of its adherents to cast a vote when the opportunity presents itself.

A considerable number of college men not only regard class and college politics as trivial in themselves but what is more fallacious, that their individual participation and responsibility is not only unnecessary but useless. The latter attitude is not only fallacious but dangerous, because it is a negative attack upon representative government as a whole, of which college politics are a fair sample. The habit, therefore, of taking an interest and feeling a responsibility in the choosing of the men who represent you in one activity or another cannot be cultivated too soon; and at least one good will be accomplished--that the accusation suggested at the beginning of this article is now obsolete.

The importance of the class elections today is a matter which should concern every Sophomore, Junior, and Senior in the University. Last year not one half of the members of either the Sophomore or Junior classes were interested enough to vote at their class elections. May the election returns tonight show that the days of little interest in class affairs have passed, and that every man concerned has done his duty of intrinsic importance--that of casting the ballot.