OSTRICH

It is scarcely a surprise that this year's Commencement week should find its dominant note in the field of politics and economics. One would be led to suppose, however, that this week's welter of oratory might contain something constructive to grace the thinking which went into its composition. Any close examination of the two outstanding speeches, the Phi Beta Kappa Oration and the Class Oration, shows that such was not the case.

In behalf of Governor Cross's oration one must remember, in all fairness, that the speaker was in a predicament. It is difficult publicly to deliver an intelligent governmental address when one is a good republican politician and governor of a utility ridden state. One is not surprised, therefore, to find Governor Cross relying upon a platitudinous survey of present conditions, and urging a portion, at least, of Mr. John Dewey's theory of educating the electorate. It is scarcely too much to say that Mr. John Dewey's views owe most of their publicity to politicians who are only too glad to remain impervious to the suggestion that those in power exercise control over education, that they realize their advantage, and that they will naturally refuse to disseminate the truth about themselves. It was slightly stupid of Governor Cross to advocate this hackneyed nostrum before a presumably intelligent audience. It was stupidity itself for him to skip from politics to Shakspere in his abortive attempt to say, in effect, that he did not know whether any good could come out of the old party system, and that if such knowledge were dangerous, he did not choose to know.

While Governor Cross sought, perhaps, deliberately, to cloud an issue already difficult for youthful comprehension, Mr. Donal M. Sullivan, the Senior Class orator, brought an aggressive faith to bear on the recuperative powers of the party system. The emotional appeal of his bitter reference to the generation which had taught his own to "worship the golden calf" was well calculated to stir interest in his constructive program. But although he went further than Governor Cross, Mr. Sullivan, too, preferred not to look behind the cars of today's order.

The ideas of the two speakers are interesting proof that, if the depression has not failed to stir the political student's interest in the philosophical fundamentals of government, it has failed to give the politician courage publicly to question the old regime. If there is any lesson in the last four years, there may be reasonable doubt as to the impeccability of that regime. And it would appear the part of intelligent, educated men, coldly to examine the problem which American democracy poses and the alternatives which in invites.

The view that political rather than intellectual timidity led the two speakers to bury their necks in sand is substantiated by the purely negative but clear-eyed pessimism of the two corresponding poets, Mr. MacLeish and Mr. Hatch. But one can scarcely escape the conclusion that the speeches were unfortunate. To the man with half an eye to fundamentals they were confusing; to the "floater" they will appear thorough. At a time when the greatest need in the world is for clear thinking and courageous definition of basic values and problems, these two men had nothing to offer but fog. It was apparently not without purpose that President Lowell urged last Sunday, "one must endeavor to distinguish between the enduring and the temporary, between the things essential to the framework of every good human society, and the expedients useful for the moment, not letting these impair the permanent structure."