Liberalism at Harvard

(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I should like to congratulate the CRIMSON on its courageous editorial on the subject of the recent attack of the National Security League on the newly formed Intercollegiate Liberal League. It is evident that the graduate whose editorial appeared in the N. Y. Tribune quite misunderstands the methods and purposes of the League.

The Intercollegiate Liberal League, above all, stands for the open mind and the open and free discussion of our problems. Certainly no straight thinking man could be opposed to such a program. It is obvious that too many of us are not in the habit of collecting all the facts before making a decision and it is this very problem, as I see it, that is the most difficult one to solve. If we can only encourage people to gather all the facts before concluding, many of our other problems will take care of themselves; if our college students, the future leaders of the country, are not so trained where are we destined?

While I am on this subject of Liberalism I should like to discuss it from another angle. The Crimson had a somewhat lengthy discussion some time ago about the matter of the attitude of high school students toward entering Harvard, and about the latters so-called "snobbishness" etc. Men come to Harvard for various reasons, some of them not common ones. Personally, I came to Harvard, among other reasons, because I believed that it was the most liberal college in the country. I noted that Professors Pound, Chafee and Cabot were here. I recalled that Harvard had helped to make such men as Emerson, William Ellery Channing, Wendell Phillips and other lovers of liberty and champions of freedom. After all, Harvard is the most liberal of all the colleges in this country and it was precisely this spirit, this inquiring for the truth with the ideals and convictions that inevitably followed, which when acted upon, really made for that part of our social progress for which Harvard men are, in part, responsible. Shall we now forsake that attitude of mind which has given this university its precious heritage? It is unthinkable!

We welcome the opposition of the National Security League; only under opposition can the chaff be separated from the wheat. However, I think that most of the members of the Liberal League will agree that the National Security League misunderstands our purpose. The Security League seems to be operating under the ridiculous idea that college students are a bunch of infants who "swallow" everything they are told without the slightest thought on their part, while, of course nothing could be further from the truth. When the National Security League becomes so hard pressed for arguments for its cause that it becomes necessary for it to read into one word uttered by one speaker at the convention a meaning which was never intended for it, it is prima facle evidence of the weakness of its case. When we hear in our lectures in economics about the "industrial revolution" of the last century do we immediately think of Russia, with its regrettable bloodshed and violence, and yell "Bolshevik, Socialist"? Thinking college students will form their own opinions about such "arguments" and tactics. NORMAN E. RIMES UNC.