"WE MOVE ANYTHING"

The moving pirate has raided the community. All that is needed to complete the picture is a black flag flying from the radiator of his motor truck. Careless undergraduates who left last spring with-out, making definite contracts to have their furniture moved are now being charged out of all reason. The work has been done and the contractor finds himself in a well-nigh impregnable position. He urges that he has fulfilled his contract, and that the time of payment is at hand.

But such payment!. Ten dollars to move a bed and bureau from Russell to Randolph! Twelve dollars to move a desk, a bed, a bureau and a table from one room in Randolph to another! The work in either case could not have taken two men more than one hour. The students who refuse to pay such prices-- and there have been a few such defiant spirits--are almost excusable, if not justified, but their position is at best very doubtful. Even those who made contracts calling for a definite advance payment find the price demand entirely cut of proportion to the job. They have, however, no chance but to argue. The moving has to be done, and there is never time at the close of college to do it themselves.

Here is a situation which deserves the intervention of the authorities. It would be a matter of no great difficulty for the college to give one firm a contract for all student moving, at a specified price for each piece of furniture. The amount of work to be done would make such a contract profitable, and would reduce greatly the cost to the individual student. And the moving could be charge on the term bill on the report of the hall janitor, just as readily as the telephone and electric light bills.

To say that this condition is the students' fault for not driving better bargains is not very helpful. The absorbing thought of the last week of college is to get out of Cambridge just as quickly as possible; next fall seems far off, and the desire to make a reasonable moving contract is very faint. Perhaps any action of the College would border on paternalism, but considering the general confusion and excitment during the last few weeks and the necessity for prompt and untroubled concentration in the fall, such action is certainly warranted.