N.S.A.F.U.

Administration of yesterday's balloting for approval or disapproval of NSA was both inefficient and imprudent. No ballots were distributed in Eliot and Leverett Houses. The Union ballot supply was insufficient. And the ballot itself, consisting of one-and-one-half pages of propaganda followed by one-and-one-half lines of actual ballot, could be classified as a manifesto with a sign-on-the-dotted-line addenda. Both the bungled supply and the blatant propaganda have undoubtedly and unfortunately lowered the number of students approving affiliation with NSA. The bungling was merely, if unexcusably, administrative inefficiency. But the propaganda was part of an ill-conceived information program, repetitions of which can only cause repeated backfirings.

The combination ballot and tract was printed under the supposition that, despite room-to-room distribution of flyers and several articles on the news pages of the Crimson, a large number of students would come face to face with the ballot unenlightened as to the nature and objectives of NSA. This supposition was undoubtedly correct, and some sort of explanation was undoubtedly necessary if the results of the vote were to mean anything. But the method utilized by the Council to clarify NSA was--let us say the word--stupid.

Oddly enough, the Council's original plan for distribution of the ballots would have precipitated no objections. Two pieces of paper would have been handed to each student. One was to be a ballot--under the aegis of the Council--with nothing on it but a simple choice of approving or rejecting affiliation with NSA. The other was to be publicity--signed by the University's NSA delegates--outlining the purposes and advantages of NSA. What actually confronted students was a combination of the two, both under the auspices of the Council, and both phrased in such a way as to insinuate that there was but one choice. NSA is too worthy a project to receive such reckless and unpolitic treatment, especially when it involves crucial undergraduate support.