HCUA

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

As a member of the Harvard Student Council in 1961-1962, I should like to protest any enlargement of the powers of the HCUA. Since the HCUA constitution was written in the fall of 1961. I am familiar with the purposes that the HCUA was designed to serve. It was to be a modest forum of student opinion, free because of its modesty from attempted abuses of its power for personal ends. Splitting the HCUA into two organizations is a natural outgrowth, reflecting the two things a student organization can do; channelling occasional student protests to the administration and serving as a source of new ideas.

I feel a stronger body would lead to dangerous abuses. Students at Harvard are, I think, not really interested in student government; generally one or perhaps two men will run for an HCUA seat. This means that extremists and activists, a small minority of the student body, could capture the HCUA and use it for their own ends. If, as has been suggested, the administration had to specifically reject all HCUA proposals, they could put the administration in a very uncomfortable position and even raise havoc. A college wide election for a president would make equally little sense. We discussed this in 1962 and rejected the idea. The House, not the college as a whole, is the usual focus of most undergraduate life. In an election the average undergraduate would be voting for people outside his House, whom he would hardly know. The people who would run all too often would want to use the Presidency for their own purposes. The election would be democratic in form but not in fact. Thus these new proposals would raise more problems than they would solve. Far more modest organizations such as those which are now suggested would be better. Jack D. Malloy '62, 2L