BALDWIN FOR PRESIDENT!

Seldom does the CRIMSON attach itself without reservation to a political boom. Yet when such a peculiar case, such a worthy one as that of Summer-field Baldwin comes to the notice of this paper, traditions fall by the wayside and all is forgotten but a definite desire to see success crown the efforts of hard laboring humanity. For Mr. Baldwin is hardlaboring. There can be little question of that. His very writing proves it. In the excerpts from his article, "The Next President of Harvard--A Prediction", published in the Transcript of yesterday one discovers the hard labor of love. He wants the Presidency. That is patent And no one should be President who does not want the position. As Mr. Baldwin may have guessed, it really is a difficult task.

More than the desire for the task must perforce be asked of him who would succeed Mr. Lowell. The next incumbent must know full well the duties of the President. Of course he can discover them in the Inaugural Address of President Eliot. Mr. Baldwin does not need to go there for any instruction. He knows his subject too well. Nothing better proves a man's knowledge of a job than his ability to prove the inability of others. Summerfield Baldwin '17 has that ability.

Selecting three gentlemen of the history department Mr. Baldwin has served is a section man in History I, he demonstrates beyond all doubt that Professor Merriman, President Little of Michigan, and Assistant Professor Whitney are the only choices Harvard could have, aside from himself. Then with "malice toward none" but a distinct remembrance that he served as a section man in History I for all, he shows that the first is ineligible because "he is close to the half-century park has some enemies and a not altogether prepossessing appearance", the second, because "he is a biologist and science has not a tutorial system very highly developed, nor is it a popular field of research among the well groomed". And that the third is only eligible because of "his control of the fourth estate of the student body". All of this is quite true.

One cannot be President of this university unless he is very goodlooking, that was the most serious inaccuracy of "Brown of Harvard", the dean was not at all handsome. Nor could a President be abided who studied biology. Harvard aside from planning a new chemistry laboratory and presenting to the world each year more and more contributions of research could never stress science. And as for the necessity of standing in with the fourth estate the CRIMSON has had to procure the assistance of a doorman to keep the crowd of administrative officers from filling the building during business hours.

With Mr. Baldwin as President the CRIMSON will probably need two doormen. For sarely he will use the knowledge of the "right thing to do" in the proper fashion. Furthermore, he will have all the necessary characteristics, as defined by him in his article. He will be "a Harvard graduate", "socially presentable", anyone who has an article in the Transcript is that, and he will be "between thirty and forty years old", since he was born in 1896. Nor will he be "a Roman Catholic, a Quaker, a Holy Roller". Mr. Baldwin is evidently an egoist.

The truth is then apparent. No man holds better reasons in his mind for becoming president of Harvard University than does Summerfield Baldwin--but are those the reasons which can satisfy Harvard? All flippancy aside, and one can best combat the flippancy of a burst of bromides such as these excerpts from the sensational meanderings of a mind with a grudge against the History Department with words of a kindred lack of seriousness, the Presidency of Harvard University is a position based on positive values. The list of Menchenisms of Mr. Baldwin are negative values. Those who could be content with Will Durant's "Outline of Philosophy" for a guide to truth will find in "The Next President of Harvard--a Prediction" the reasons for choosing a university president. Others will not. And those others are the Corporation and the Board of Overseers of Harvard University. Nor is there any reason for a quick choice. Mr. Lowell is still President of Harvard, and until his term is at an end he will so continue. In the meantime the university grows and prospers, not alone financially but intellectually and spiritually, all section men land blurb writers to the contrary not withstanding