Nurse Maid

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Apropos of the recent nominations for officers of the class of 1936 and of the apparent finality with which the student council sets their own choices up for election, it is only fair that certain questions should be answered in regard to this method of procedure. First, by what right or precedent does the student council assume to make these nominations: and second, granting that the matter is according to Hoyle, what reasons are there to believe that this is the most satisfactory method of procedure?

To a large number of freshmen the system appears both unwise and unfair and such a claim would be justified by the following objections:

1. that the nominees of the council do not necessarily represent the choice of the majority of freshmen, that these nominees are not the ablest and most efficient men of the class but have caught the council's eye by prominence in athletics, previous friendship, or by activities in such sinecure positions as the dormitory committees (which are also completely non-representative groups.)

2. that, though the freshman officers may not fill particularly important positions, still the election of unsuitable individuals will give these individuals an undue and undeserved prominence In later college affairs to the exclusion of those who may be more capable if less imposing.

3. that the business of other nominees being added to the list by popular petition is a complete farce since in the time allowed there is practically no chance of anyone or any group undertaking the trouble of choosing a candidate and obtaining the required number of signatures.

4. that the whole system tends to discourage interest in college affairs in those very men in whom it is most important that this interest be stimulated.

Is there any reason why the Freshman officers should not be nominated in the regular way by those whom they are supposed to represent? Certainly the class is now well enough acquainted to choose with reason and without delay whom they desire for president, vice-president, and secretary-treasurer. Probably they would renominate some who have already been put on the list but at least they would not have to accept what was handed out to them or else nothing.

If the student council is unwilling to set up a ballot box in the Union and appoint some one to watch it, the freshmen will be glad to undertake the election on their own. At least the council should be able to discover more useful pursuits than that of playing nursemaid to the poor little unobtrusive freshmen. William F. Read '36.