Unfounded Worries

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

At the present time many students in the University are signing up to serve the railroads in case the proposed strike really takes place. Should not the University as such be neutral in this matter? Is it right and wise for the University to allow a group of men to call themselves the Harvard unit? Has the University as such any more right to put pressure to bear on the strikers than to dictate to the Pennsylvania railroad that it must not disobey the awards of the labor board? (as it has done.)

It seems to me that a student should not be hasty in this very important matter. His patriotic impulse, excellent under certain circumstances, has been known to mislead him. If labor sees the universities as such taking a definite stand against it, will it not be justified in confirming an opinion already more or less universally held in labor circles, that the colleges are essentially "bourgeois"?

I do not wish to be misunderstood. I understand the more obvious reasons, at least, why we should fight the strike. It is because some consider it a strike as a result of which the public--an evidently though not actually innocent party--will suffer. If any man entertains this opinion and wishes to aid in breaking the strike (which probably won't come off) let him do so as an individual. The group should not be called "the Harvard Unit". Meetings for the instruction of prospective strike breakers should not be held on college grounds or if so held it should be clearly understood that the University itself is neutral. NORMAN E. HIMES '23   October 25, 1921.