VOTING

Voting is a privilege; nobody is required to cast a ballot in any election. Voting is also a barometer by which a man's interest in what goes on about him may be measured in no uncertain manner. He either cares about his leaders or is entirely indifferent to them. He either votes or lets somebody else elect his own officers. This is "vote week" at the University and both elections will show the interest of Harvard men in their own business. The class elections today directly concern the members of 1922 and 1923; the straw vote tomorrow concerns all the University. It is useless to moralize on the virtue of voting for class officers. The constitutions have finally taken care of the yearly indifference by requiring 60 percent of the class to vote in a valid election. It ought not to be necessary to have to compute percentages in any class election. As to the straw vote there is one consideration: a straw vote is an honest attempt to indicate public opinion. It is worth nothing if everybody does not john in. By not voting you are breaking no rule, but you are showing a clam-like indifference to an affair of interest to all, the success or failure of which lies in your hands.