More 1918 Nominations Wanted.

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

An alarming mistake has, I think, been made by the Student Council in the matter of Freshman nominations. There are but two nominees to each office. Yet it is surely evident that there will be a comparatively limited number of men who will know--and by this I mean acquaintance intimate enough for distinction--both of the candidates between whom it is their duty to decide. With an electorate of 700, with a three months opportunity for encounter, how many voters, think you, have a knowledge of the personality--I might almost say name--of an arbitrary two of their number? I venture to estimate 60.

The matter cannot be overlooked. The officers of a body of 700--officers elected by that 700 itself--are automatically made the greatest internal force of the "demos"; not only, I think, for the first year, but, if with a decreasing influence, throughout the College course. With a candidacy of two, electors will vote on reputations. But such standards fluctuate, and are at best a flimsy foundation for an important super-structure.

Nor will the difficulty be obviated by the provision for further voluntary nomination by the Freshmen themselves. One candidate, nominated by such means, is in the field; it speaks well for him. But there is too much indifference, too much lack of initiative in the class for the possibility of anything like a representative series of voluntary nominations by any except over-enthusiastic hero worshipers.

May the committee propose further candidates--six for each office would not be too many!