BEST APPPLE

Of the six candidates running for the office of mayor of Boston, the one by all odds best suited for this job is Malcolm E. Nichols, '99. Although admitedly a politician, he is of the school which the city needs most in its present crisis. As a Republican he offers an end to the Democratic despotism that has prevailed for so many years. His associations are clean, and his political indebtedness is not such that he will be forced to fill municipal offices with the dregs of Boston.

As mayor from 1926 to 1930, he gained the technical knowledge indispensable to anyone whom the voters entrust with this measure of authority. His regime has seldom been called inspired, yet he emerged from office with clean hands, which in Boston may be regarded as somewhat phenomenal. If he returns he will find fewer dollars in the treasury and more mouths to be fed, but the judgement and sound practical sense which he has gained in many years of legal experience seem capable of regulating city expenditures with economy as well as humanity.

Unhampered by the heirarchy of Democratic parasites who now cover the Hill, he will be able to bring about reforms the city has long awaited. The unequal distribution of county costs, the excessive taxes on real estate, the exorbitant costs of municipal government, the lack of enterprise shown by the Boston Port Authority, a board set up at Nichols' instigation in 1929, the Police Departments occasional surrender to temptation; these are a few of the evils which an honest mayor should and must remedy.

The election on November 2 is non-partisan in form, and every Bostonian, of whatever political faith, should remember that in voting for Nichols he may not be opening the door of Utopia, but he is at least writing "finis" to a disgraceful chapter in the history of Massachusetts. This fact makes all the more deplorable the recent disaffection of a number of prominent Republicans in Ward 5. Basing their action on a personal quarrel of ten years' standing they have put personal sentiment before the good of the city in a manner which the average voter will do well to avoid. There is absolutely no evidence that Nichols is anything but what his record declares him to be, an honest Republican whose ability and experience render him preeminently worthy of the office of mayor.