Hanging Separately

Crying "autonomy" like big businessmen fearful of government regulation, the House Masters last week tabled the proposed Inter-House Dance Committee. Several of the House committees agree, although the dance deficit of all the Houses last year totalled $1000. These opponents of the Student Council's plan fear dictatorship because of the committee's control of date assignments and its countersignature of contracts. While they desire a clearing house's advice on slippery band agents, these individualists demand the right to do as they please about accepting it. Their arguments sound like the staunch states' rights stand of the Republicans in the Landon campaign.

The Council committee's purpose is to deal firmly with agents who never quote the same prices twice and to put the brakes on cut-throat dance competition in order to permit dance chairmen to use black ink in their ledgers for a change. A wise choice of time is a vital factor in holding a successful dance and to deny a central committee power here as the individuals propose, is to nullify all its other good offices. Last spring's jumbled, conflicting dance schedule is a good example of what happens under "autonomy." By eliminating competition for dances, the inter House Dance Committee will gain tremendous bargaining power with the band bookies, who formerly played one House against the other. The committee's signature on contracts, moreover, is not dictatorship, but rather gives the necessary weight to its decisions.

The proposed plan would destroy a system of wasteful competition. It would destroy the worst feature of inter-House relations. If by eliminating a wild scramble for bands the Inter House Dance Committee is destroying "autonomy," that kind of autonomy should be destroyed.