Against Compulsory Union.

(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:

As the views so far expressed in your columns have been entirely one-sided, may we make a few criticisms of the biased report prepared for the Student Council by what was virtually the Union itself?

1. The Union offers no advantages which cannot be supplied elsewhere: library and dining-room are superfluous; lectures can be and are given in other buildings; class meetings are so artificial and unproductive that their abolishment is highly desirable; the publications are in the course of moving to offices of their own; mass meetings, two per year, can be held in Sanders. New Lecture Hall, or Massachusetts, if necessary.

2. The Union has so little actual value that the College, its proper administrator, cannot be induced to take over control of it.

3. The addition of six dollars to the increased tuition fee is out of all proportion to the relative value of the Union services and of those afforded by the College.

4. The introduction of compulsory membership is a confession of failure; and in a liberal democracy, compulsion in aid of a useless failure is inexcusable.

5. Such compulsion would set a precedent for similar attempts to revive defunct organizations in the future.

6. Compulsion in this case is contrary to our best traditions, and while commendably socialistic in appearance, in fact is simply autocratic.

In a matter of such importance to the College, we sincerely hope that the indifference of departing Seniors or the hopeful ignorance of incoming Freshmen will not lead to favorable votes on so undesirable an attempt to preserve a private institution at the expense of the undergraduate purse, and in violation of the rights, for in this case they are rights, of the individual. E. A. LEROY, JR., '16.   L. P. MANSFIELD '16.   G. H. SHAW 1G.   H. L. M. COLE '16.