TOWN AND GOWN

The critical financial state of New Haven gives pertinence to a problem which for long has confronted universities and local governments. The New Haven authorities have threatened Yale with special legislation to annul the tax-exempt features of its charter, unless the university voluntarily contributes in the present emergency. In view of the fact that Yale has been accused of securing unjust exemptions, the possibility takes on extra force. The university golf-course, according to press reports, has been transformed by academic magic into a botanical gardon. Dormitories and gymnasiums have received the addition of recitation rooms, in order to justify the educational label.

Apart from its special features, Yale's problem is that of every large university situated in a small city. Especially in times of depression, the demand that the universities forego, in whole or part, their special privileges, is bound to recur. Harvard's "gentleman's agreement" with Cambridge sprang from a similar situation and a similar feeling. The material and intellectual advantages which a locality derive from the presence of a great university are not sufficient, in times of economic stress, to compensate for the loss of revenue from the tax exemptions of wealthy institutions. The pressure of taxation on the poorest citizens is increased by such exemptions, and their demand for relief is as legitimate, as it is inevitable. Response to it is a moral, if not a legal, obligation.