INDIAN CLUBS

From Dartmouth comes news of a significant internal struggle. The inter-fraternity council there has decreed that none of its members may enter an athletic contest with the Bema, a newly organized club, not a fraternity, nor shall the latter be allowed to compete for a certain loving cup bought by the inter-fraternity council. If the Bema feels disposed to have a cup, it must purchase one of its own.

That the beau monde at Dartmouth should resort to this graceless expedient implies something more serious than mere desire to be exclusive. Economic difficulties of today embarrass the fraternity system, with its rows of expensive private houses, to a painful degree. Only too often membership must either be restricted to the rich, or offered promiscuously to anyone who can help most expenses. The fact that many man have not the means to join not only increases the non-members, but makes the financial burden exorbitant for the chosen few. Thus the position of the so-called "barbarians" on the average college campus has suffered a paradoxical change. No longer a mere aesthetic menace, a fringe of outcasts condescendingly tolerated, they have come to be regarded as heretics who must be lured or snatched back into the fraternal fold.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the fraternity system is passing. Taxes have grown more heavy; the revenue from rich alumni has diminished. The Greeks must either become so exclusive as to be a negligible clique, or they must, as already in several large middlewestern universities, turn themselves into mere dormitories open to all. The current depression aided by such awkward schisms as that now opening at Dartmouth, will do much to hurry the transition.