Those Obnoxious Beer Adds.

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The report in last Thursday's CRIMSON that the class of 1918 had voted against beer at smokers raised hopes that the Prohibition wave had at last struck Harvard. Those hopes proved ill-grounded; but in the face of the returns from the recent Massachusetts elections and the recent national election, when four more states went for Prohibition, I believe it is imperative for the CRIMSON, as the chief representative of Harvard sentiment, to take some definite stand.

In particular, the CRIMSON should give some non-financial reason for continuing its obnoxious liquor advertising. To be sure, the advertisements this year have taken a less disgusting shape than formerly; the brewers have become modest, and no longer flaunt their waers in our faces with an are of rakish conviviality; but why should the CRIMSON hesitate to do what most reputable newspapers and magazines have long since done and expel such advertising altogether? College papers are traditionally idealistic. Some of them have been the pioneer spokemen in movements for civic betterment. Shall the CRIMSON chcose to stand aloof from this great national movement and let others do the fighting while it takes in the shekels which the brewers are so lavishly expending to stave off the evil day?

Of course, if the CRIMSON really believes in the essential nobility of the liquor traffic, and its salutary influence upon the government, there is something heroic in its attitude. Let it resist as long as it can in the midst of a dry Cambridge and a rapidly-drying nation, and gallantly wave its beer-bottle to the bitter end. But if it admits that the traffic is harmful, I cannot see how it is justified in filling its coffers from any such sources. I wish it would explain its position. WALTER M. HORTON '17.