COMPULSORY NEWS: CON

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Radcliffe undergraduates must vote today on whether to continue to require every student to subscribe to the Radcliffe News. Proponents of the compulsory subscription insist that the measure is necessary if the News is to survive, and they have tried to pretend that today's vote is on whether Radcliffe students want the News to survive.

This just is not so. Opponents of the compulsory subscription also want to see an independent Radcliffe newspaper. The only issue is how best to obtain such a paper.

The Radcliffe News can survive without compulsory subscription. Reliable rumors, which have never been denied by the News, report that the News has accumulated a very substantial bank account during its four years under compulsory subscription, an amount which, with advertising revenue, could publish the News for a long period without any circulation revenue whatsoever. Why has the News never denied these rumors? Why has it refused to release to the voters a dollars and cents financial accounting, instead of attempting to stampede them with crocodile tears about its impending demise?

Even more important is the deadening effect of a compulsory subscription on the News' quality. If the experience of four years under the compulsory subscription rule has proved any one point, it is that serious efforts will be made to improve the News only when it faces the immediate prospect of seeking student approval. It is no mere coincidence that the only two serious efforts to improve the News during the last several years have come just before the two votes on compulsory subscription.

Perhaps if subscription revenues were not guaranteed, the News would be more responsive to the requests for publicity from such organizations as the athletic association and the Yearbook, instead of largely ignoring them, as its editors have safely been able to do in the past.

To be sure, during the first year of the changeover to voluntary subscription, some financial assistance might be needed. But this could come in the form of a small direct Student Government subsidy to supplement voluntary subscription revenue.

Four years ago, we were told that the adoption of compulsory subscription would enable the News to be a better paper by helping it to financial security. The experience of the past four years has shown this to be untrue, so why not abandon the compulsory subscription and make the News a better paper by making it constantly seek the approval of its readers? Ruth Joseph '54