My Plan for Student Government (and World Power)

"What do you think's going to happen to the HCUA?"

"To the what?"

"The Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs, our student government."

"Gee, I dunno. What courses are you taking next semester?"

Student government is an issue of burning interest to every student at Harvard. The iron hand of Administrative despotism lies heavy on our shoulders. The time has come when we students must take the future into our own hands and mold the world that will be ours. No better way exists than to begin with effective and powerful student government, here and now.

The first thing an effective student government must be able to do--a function recent so-called "governments" have conspicuously failed to perform--is present the demands of the students. For instance, for more powerful light bulbs over the toilets in Lamont.

Some of the student community most distinguished intellectual leaders have gotten eyestrain trying to read under the inadequate lighting in Lamont toilets. What more effective way to remedy this evil than for 4500 undergraduates to storm up the steps of Emerson Hall--or wherever the Administration is--shouting, "Might makes light! Might makes light!"

Then, and this is an entirely distinct function, a student government must be able to represent student opinion. In response to the question, "What jobs do you think a student government ought to perform?.", seven randomly selected CRIMSON editors gave no answer, and one randomly selected Lampoon editor cried, "Down with the CRIMSON!"

Thus at least 12 per cent of the students interviewed favored alterations in the College's policy towards student publications. What more effective way to remedy this evil than for 4500 undergraduates to storm the steps of Paine Hall shouting "Press makes mess! Press makes mess!"

Finally, and most importantly, student government must provide a channel through which students can express their grievances. For instance, about the ice cream. It doesn't tell you anything in "Studies in the Freshman year" about the ice cream; all it says is "general education ... is used to indicate that part of a student's whole education which looks first of all to his life as a responsible human being and citizen."

Did you ever hear anything about your life as a "responsible human being and citizen" around here? Day after day, in different colors and different shapes, it's the same old ice cream. What more effective way to remedy this evil than for 4500 undergraduates to storm Elsie's?

In short, I advocate mass action--in dividualistic mass action. We shall soon have the chance to divide the present monolithic, inert so-called government" in two. We must seize the opportunity. But we must not stop there.

Within the month, we must petition for another referendum to divide those two governments in two again. And when we have four student governments, we must petition and vote for eight. ("Divide and conk her," as one auto mechanic said to the other.) For in numbers there is strength.

When the long division is complete, each man will be a Chairman of a Harvard Student Government, each man a plenipotentiary unto himself. And should great injustice be done, what more effective way to remedy it than for 4500 heads of state to rush down to the sycamore trees, and beyond, and into the Charles River?