EVADING THE ISSUE

The decision of the Student Council Wednesday night to set forward the date of Freshman elections for one month is typical of the indecisive action that sometimes characterizes that body. The change seems inconsequential, and the whole question of abolishing the evils caused by the Freshman elections themselves is left unsolved.

It is claimed by the report of the Freshman by-laws committee of the Council that the added month will give the electorate more time to consider the candidates. In fact, this added month will have no effect. Voters will still not know for whom they are voting, and Union Committee members or sports heroes will still be elected.

But far more serious is the fact that the Freshman class will continue to elect officers for whom there is no useful function. These officers will still fill the Jubilee and Smoker committees with their own friends and bask in the light of a prestige they do not deserve.

The Union Committee will, as before, be thrown out of practice at a time when they are most needed. The Council praises itself for giving the Union Committee an added month in which to prosecute activities beneficial to the class; but it does not have the courage to carry this step to its logical and inevitable conclusion: having the Committee serve throughout the year, which can be done only if the Freshman elections are abolished.

The election of Senior Class marshals is in a different category, for these come at a time when the class can honor men with distinguished records in the college. As the Sophomore elections have gone, so the Freshman ones will go. It is to be regretted that the Council did not take this chance to render a useful service to the University. ED THREE--MAKIN GAWR HUMANE--Hed

Stirring up the old theme of jingoism with an editorial on outlawing barbarism from warfare, Mr. Hearst recently raised his voice for a humanitarian principle that has recurrently been embraced by idealists and in turn refuted by the bestiality and blind emotion of man. David Lloyd George's and Winston Churchill's wholehearted endorsement of Mr. Hearst's suggestion would seem to illustrate the inability of modern man to realize that humane principles can never be applied to war.

In his editorial Mr. Hearst urged that any national resorting to the indiscriminate bombing of non-combatants be outlawed and advocated that "this outlaw nation" be proceeded against accordingly. To the rational thinker this means nothing but a preposterous contradictions, since Mr. Hearst proposes the use of violence to end violence.

Whoever is aware of the failure of the humanitarian proposals to establish international laws regulating warfare tactics must realize the futility of such efforts. When Europe entered the World War, the nationals had agreed to use no poison gas; yet not many months passed before very belligerent country was killing thousands with poisonous fumes. After the War, led by the League of Nations, the world banned dum dum bullets; yet two years ago the Italians used them to blast holes through the Ethiopians.

Apparently it was Franco's late bombing of Teruel which prompted Mr. Hearst's outburst. But no protest, even though rational, could induce the armed powers of today to return to the ideal of eliminating barbarism from warfare. The simple fact is that nothing, until the world shakes bands upon the eradication of war, will prevent the horror of war.