Red Book

Both a Register and a Red Book? For the past nine months the Student Council has been toying with the idea of doing away with the ever present, if often belated Freshman Red Book. Now that the less complicated Register, with names and numbers and pictures of all newcomers, has come back on the scene, some Council members have questioned the need of the other, larger animal.

Because the Red Book is an imposing volume, a kind of summing up of a First Year at Harvard, it is a burden to its sponsors, the Council. First, printing costs are temporarily high, and advertising appeal has always been low. The '49 Red Book, came out $1,000 behind; the following two books have taken a smaller beating. Publication expenses, it is true, may fall, and the Red Book can save by using Register photos--but as long as there is a deficit, the Council will have to meet it.

Second, preparing the annual is a one-shot job, involving little glory and much labor. The task of finding good men to work for it is a perplexing one for the busy Council.

These technical obstacles alone should not determine the fate of the Red Book, however. Council funds at present are adequate to support the book, and the recent Freshman Affairs report shows how to case the personnel problem. University Hall does not exert overpowering pressure one way or another. (Den Leighton would like to see the Red Book stay, but he will not try to interfere in the Council's business.) Logically, therefore, the Council should consider the tastes of the Freshmen.

What is called for is (one hesitates to use the word) a poll. If a survey shows that none of last year's Freshmen like a Red Book, it shall have to be scrapped. If all of them want it, it shall have to be kept. But if an indecisive result leaves the verdict to the Council, then that body shall have to be kept. But if an indecisive result leaves the verdict the Council, then that body shall have to judge for itself.

The criterion in this case should be only: How useful is the book to the class? Two excellent reports on class affairs were filed by the Council last year. Both show a way to pull together the fragments of classes left by the war. And both look to a future unity in each class, a unity that even prewar days may not have seen. In the new kind of class that is envisioned, the Council should see if there is a place for a Red Book. On this basis should it make up its mind.

Nine months is long enough. The Red Book business is old business, and it should be cleared away. Let the Council proceed with its polling and thinking with reasonable speed.