THE DISGRACE OF 1917.

The Senior Class elections held during the last two weeks have been a blot on the record of the Class of 1917 and a disgrace to Harvard College. For a long period of years the most important of undergraduate elections have maintained a tone of dignity and have been naturally free of clashes resulting from childish suspicions of unfair nominations.

This December has witnessed a French Revolution of Lilliputian dimensions, with Committees of Safety, Tribunals and Robespierres appearing to defend strange principles and candidates of questionable qualifications for governing this diminutive republic of four hundred citizens. Social and political factions have sprung from superficial causes of difference hitherto unknown. Campaigning, electioneering and forming of combinations have been rife. In fact the supposedly mature, intelligent Seniors of Harvard University have descended to the low, despicable methods of a well-conducted Tammany Hall election, in order to elect twenty-two class officers.

This is not derisive criticism of any one element in the class, it is a condemnation of the unworthy methods used by all the cliques who desired to see their particular candidates elected. Since the list of men nominated for the Senior officers can never be considered infallible, the democratic right of petition exists for the use of any group of men who feel that a man has been omitted who deserves to be nominated on account of his college record. When this right is used intelligently, there can be no possibility of hostile groups of politicians developing in the class. However, when this right is considered a lawful instrument for the furthering of an individual's or a clique's own interests, then the offence itself will immediately cause hard feeling and harsh words.

The Senior elections are now history and the choice of candidates has been decided by the popular vote of the class. Since post-mortems are always disagreeable and futile, the relations of the class will be more pleasant, its unity more complete and its record more praiseworthy if all parties, Mountain, Gironde and Royalist, forget the petty disagreements of the past and form one party composed of the entire class.