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New England gossips would have talked themselves into a hoarse frenzy had a President Emeritus of Harvard expressed more than a genteel preference for one candidate or another--in the half mythical days when President Coolidge was a Senior in good standing at Amherst. But that was before Woodrow Wilson changed his presidency from one in Tigertown to one in Washington.

Prior to that unprecedented step the heads of universities kept judiciously, if not scornfully, aloof from America's recurring leap year frolic, which happily taints few of the many it interests. The list of Honorary Vice Chairmen of the Davis College League, however, is fresh proof of the dawn of a new day.

While the past is always charmingly wrapped in a golden haze, the future in this case is no less pleasing. For year after year the undergraduate has listened apathetically to appeals for his interest in the seething world outside. Except when such participation promised a gay torchlight procession or a chance to hurl milk bottles without interference it moved him not. But when deans and presidents themselves rush from the cloister the undergraduates will doubtless fling aside robes and sandals and plunge into the whirring world.

The news of the formation of a La Follette-Wheeler club comes handily as proof of such a reaction. It offers assurance too that while the undergraduate may follow his academic leaders into the political field he will have independence enough to browse at will. That President Eliot and his fellow officers plan to support Mr. Davis would be deplorable only if the collegiate bodies whom they influence should blindly follow their choice.