Misguided 'Guardian'

Like any newspaper that is energetically interested in politics, the CRIMSON can rarely be choosy about its bedfellows. But last week one of those fellows was so blatantly wrong and so ignorant about the facts leading to his bed fellowship that it just worthwhile enough to set the record straight.

The bedfellow in question was the "National Guardian," a New York paper which calls itself "The Progressive Newsweekly" and treads a distinctly fellow-travelling path. In an article entitled IVY LEAGUE DIAGNOSES ITSELF: 'NO GUTS' the Guardian printed chunks of a recent editorial from the CRIMSON about a trend in American education towards "safe plodding rather than expression of unpopular opinions." Our editorial had been run as a commentary on a "Daily Dartmouth" ed entitled "Mr. Zero IV"--an impassioned job of soul searching which concluded that students "had stopped looking at the Other Side, ceased reading and thinking about it." We decided that the fault was not only in colleges but everywhere.

The Guardian, however, expanded our beliefs into a swipe at President Conant. It said "among those currently plagued by 'safe plodding' the CRIMSON editors may have had in mind . . . Dr. Conant, who in February came out for 'continual flow into the armed forces of those who reach 18 . . . to defend the free world'." It was wrong. We had in mind only what we said: that there was a regrettable trend towards the stifling of unpopular opinion. We had nothing to say about the President's statement, with which we largely agree, and which is politically very far from "safe plodding." We thank the Guardian for its pat on the back, and commend to it a good stiff session with its own soul.