LIBERAL BATS

That the Liberal Club is seriously considering preparing a petition to send to Washington advocating legislation on vital topics of the day indicates its members are in danger of losing their sense of humor. It is all very well to discuss momentous problems in an open forum, and the practice of having prominent men speak words of wisdom on the world and its problems is commendable; but the idea of a group of semi-intellectual college students taking themselves seriously enough to think they are capable of doing Congress's work is preposterous.

Foreign policy, money, banking, public finance, commerce and regulation of industry, social security and labor, government personnel--these are the subjects to be covered in the Liberal Clubs petition to Congress. Granted the questions are vital, granted the excellence of the interest shown by college students, granted the high-mindedness that inspires their action, granted the need for experience in the practical side of political theory and governmental workings--but what, in the name of all that is muddle-headed, what business has the Harvard Liberal Club interfering in Congressional legislation? Isn't it muddled enough now?

A university is an institution for detached, impartial study of the arts and the sciences, contemporary and modern. Assuredly, the art of government belongs on the roster of any modern college as a subject for careful research and examination. But it is not the province of the university, nor is it the province of students, to involve themselves in governmental affairs, while they are students, precisely because they will inevitably lose the perspective which is essential to profitable study.

Quite aside from the impropriety of the proposed petition, however, is the indication that the members of the Liberal Club are taking life, themselves, and the importance of the Club far too seriously. Throughout the nation, for that matter, people are showing a strong tendency to jump at the first panacea that comes down the pipe. The point is not that world-wide affairs are unimportant; they are. It is not that college students should not interest themselves in government to the point where they will enter public service themselves after graduation; they should. But what America needs is to be laughed at, and to laugh at itself, loud and long; and what the members of the Liberal Club need more than anything else is to go on a sustained bat.