"Gawd"

To The Editor of the CRIMSON:

That the earnestness of advocates of political action often gains much through the leaven of humor is a fact which is too seldom recognized by such advocates. But humorless advocacy is better, usually, than contented tragi-comical inertia and it seems to me that the CRIMSON, in its editorial "Liberal Bats," extends the bounds of the good sense it urges when it condemns the Liberal Club petition on that ground.

I have yet to find anyone who has condemned either the essential seriousness or the practical worth, present and future, of the well-known custom of the Oxford Union in inviting government officials to defend their policies before the Union; nor has it been observed, I believe, that British legislation has become any the more "muddle-headed" for the presence of Oxford students in the House of Commons as Members.

In this country, long distances prevent a pursuit of the first custom mentioned; tradition does not support, and practical politics does not permit, the election of students to Congress. The use of petition remains. And if Hearst-harried haters of internationalism may deluge the Senate with anti-World Court telegrams with such decisive effect, I submit to the learned editors of the CRIMSON that, under current circumstances, it is most poignantly the "province of students to involve themselves in governmental affairs."

It would be pointless to review here the recent editorial past of the CRIMSON to show, perhaps not without humor, that, were the CRIMSON editors and the Liberal Club members comparable as commentators on public affairs, the implied slur by the CRIMSON on the capacity of the Liberal Club would be accurate. Yet consistency is a virtue which can be practices with profit by the CRIMSON. And, finally, indulging in what is perhaps a pardonable personality, it seems to me that if the CRIMSON can demonstrate the economic harm to and plead for social justice for the Chinese in the editorial "The Orient's Silver" it is quite inconsistent to inveigh, in the next column, against the Liberal Club's petition to Congress.

With some trepidation lest I be thought humorless in bothering to comment on the CRIMSON editorial. Donal M. Sullivan '33.