CROSS EXPOUNDS THE BUDGET PLAN

The following article on the Harvard Student Budget was written especially for the Crimson by John Cross '30, treasurer of the Student Council.

The Harvard Student Budget system was instituted in 1926 by vote of the Student Council. Its purpose was to stop the door to door soliciting of such organizations as the American Red Cross, the Cambridge Council of Boy Scouts and the Salvation Army, and also to provide a systematic way of collecting the necessary funds for the Phillips Brooks House Association and the various activities of the classes.

The Council made agreements with these charitable organizations promising to each of them the approximate amounts which they had been collecting by individual soliciting. The Budget drive is made at registration time and it is the only drive for money permitted during the college year. Charities have to apply to the Council for donations and the Council votes on each.

Advisory Committee Formed

This year the Council has, at the suggestion of the Phillips Brooks House formed an advisory committee composed of the treasurer of the Student Budget, his assistant and the officers of the P. B. H., to investigate the merits of the charities applying for money.

Each class receives the sum of $600 for class expenses, the remainder of which sum to be held in reserve for use in printing their Senior Album. The Budget also lends each year the Senior Album Committee sufficient money to defray additional expenses incurred before the Album subscriptions are received. This sum is repayed as soon as possible.

The Harvard Register in past years has also been printed at the expense of the Budget, but in 1929 the Council voted to discontinue its publication. The lack of support given it by the Student Body seemed to indicate that it was of slight value.