FREE SPEECH AND FREE IDEALS

The CRIMSON prints today a comment on free speech in foreign universities. In this country, war's necessities have not shackled speech. But we still follow the law of suppression; though in lesser degree, conservatism and class prejudice still smother radical ideas.

Here in Harvard we have always stood for free speech. For a century we have cherished the principle of freedom in religion. There is still a question, how-ever, as to whether the average Harvard man leaves college with free ideals.

The trouble with most of our ideals is, that they are absorbed, not thought out. Our politics, our religion, are imbibed rather than constructed. How many men who voted in the straw ballot, how many who will march in the Hughes parade tonight, base their acts on solid reasoning and conviction? The only reason why free-thinkers are persecuted is that the majority of people do not take time to think. They blindly follow the conservatism of the last decade, finding it easier to submit than to investigate.

The educated man must strike fundamentals; he must lay hold of great issues he must take his stand definitely upon the large questions of the day. How many of us try to satisfy this aim by pondering a few minutes over admission to the Union or the Smoker question? What we need to do is to abstract time for the study of basic principles. The college man never realizes how much spare time he has. Any Law School man will verify that. Why not use some of this spare time to create an individual and constructive idealism? On this firm basis only can we go out into the world and preserve for our University the high reputation she has bought with the sacrifices of the past.