Glled Aristocracy

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

According to yesterday's "Herald-Tribune," Harry L. Hopkins indirectly attacked Williams and Harvard for rejecting an offer of F.E.R.A. money to aid needy students. Mr. Hopkins said in part: "I notice a couple of these overly endowed aristocratic institutions say that (i.e. the granting of F. E. R. A. grants to needy students) is a terrible thing to do; implying that in the last analysis education is for the privileged few who have money to go to college. . . I have no apologies to make to over-endowed private institutions that do not know what to do with their money. You find in this field. . . the aristocrats of wealth who claim that they have certain privileges that the best of us shall not have."

So deliberate a falsification of the recent remarks made by Dr. Dennett of Williams (for it obvious that it is to him that Hopkins refers) becomes all the more apparent when we examine what Dennett actually said. It was his contention that in times of economic depression, colleges should restrict their budgets to accord with their restricted incomes. This does not mean--and unless Mr. Hopkins is an imbecile, he knows it--that "education is for the privileged free who have money." It simply means that Williams College is not going to be an instrument for the carrying out of a government policy which its President feels will ultimately harm the future of Williams; and her function as an educational institution.

The contradictions in Mr. Hopkins's remarks become apparent when he accuses Williams indirectly of being "overendowed," and containing "the aristocrat of wealth." If Williams is such a horrid place, why did Mr. Hopkins even offer to aid students who desired to go to this "aristocratic, over-endowed" institution? According to his own word, this would have a bad influence on the boys. But, then, what is a contradiction to a New Dealer?

One also wonders if Mr. Hopkin's thinks his boss has been poisoned, for did not he graduate from Harvard--one of these oppressively wealthy institutions? And, horror of horrors, the President was foolish enough to send his sons to Harvard. Indeed, Mr. Hopkins had better confer with President, and so taking baths in glass houses. V. H. Kramer '35.