SILENT CONFIDENCE

Now that the tumult and shouting has died down, and the suppression of the Advocate and the Lampoon has become a recognized fact, it might be well to look at the situation from the attitude that the college authorities took in this affair. Many agree that the action of the police was mischievous and unwarranted in both cases, but whereas the Lampoon was a clean and clever satire, the Advocate was scarcely so commendable a publication to outsiders. This, if ever, would have been the occasion for the interference of University authorities. But the dean's office, holding to its traditional liberal policy, has issued no hasty ultimatum and offered no blustering excuses. The faculty individually communicated their staunch support to the maltreated Lampoon, and respected the right of the Advocate to amend its own faults.

For those who take such necessary support for granted, it is interesting to note that the suppression of these two publications has brought on a wave of petty declarations from other college offices to the effect that any similar infringement of journalistic etiquette would be severely punished. Other colleges evidently felt that they might need to protect themselves against the irrepressible doings of their undergraduates, and be called upon to justify their actions in the eyes of the world. Unaffected by outside protest, the authorities of Harvard have quietly continued to keep their hands off of student opinion, knowing that the whole affair would take care of itself. Such far-seeing trust, questioned, as it is at this moment by outsiders, cannot be too deeply appreciated by those within the college.