Interhouse Now

Last week, a committee composed of nine Masters and four Deans "tabled indefinitely" a request for a trial period of inter-house dining between Harvard and Radcliffe. They stated that they wished to "restudy financial questions."

What does this mean?

Are the Masters, as popular belief runs, irrevocably opposed to the prospect of increased numbers of girls eating in the Harvard dining halls for traditional, aesthetic, and other ideological reasons? If so, they owe it to Harvard undergraduates to argue their position. The College has made its opinion clear; a vote conducted by the HCUA showed 87 per cent of the College in favor of interhouse dining. Do the Masters wish to preserve status quo definitely rejected by the students?

On the other hand, are the Masters seriously concerned about the "financial ramifications" of this proposal? Although this is their offiical position, it is rather hard to believe. Harvard University takes in $102 million a year and spends $99 million; surely the problem of dinner prices cannot be seriously endangering the budget. And even granting that the financial arrangements may be somewhat complicated, couldn't they better be worked out by a sub-committee? Must the whole proposal stand at an impasse while Dean Trottenberg calls a summit conference with Radcliffe chiefs?

Or finally, might this whole business of "indefinite tabling" simply be a ruse on the part of the Masters to delay a change which they know will occur sooner or later? If so, we can only gnash our teeth while the wheels of progress grind exceeding slow. The student bodies of Harvard and Radcliffe, as well as this newspaper, have made it indisputably clear that interhouse dining would be a good thing and welcomed by everyone. What then is the point of postponing the advantages, financial, moral, social, aesthetic, and the rest? The students have demanded this change--and it should be made soon.