BEHIND THE FENCES

Student opinion at Harvard is customarily a multicellular organism that sprawls over every hue of belief. Only in periods of great crisis does that opinion galvanize into a unicellular entity. That crisis is at hand. The administration of the University must take action.

Harvard officialdom has shrouded the construction of the Widener Annex in a cloak of mystery, to mask its progress with high, forbidding fences. This is an unwise attitude. The completion of the building requires student supervision. Only under the watchful eye of students can the work continue safely and efficiently; for, if the construction is supervised only by a totalitarian oligarchy of contractors, countless dangers are imminent.

Needless to say, sabotage is a threat. Should construction work fall into the hands of a foreign power, havoc could be wrought behind the fences. By an ingenious system of tunnels, Widener could be drained of every learned periodical this side of the Reading Room. Then, too, the workers in charge might run berserk in their lonely isolation behind the fences and, from force of habit, rear another Weld or Matthews.

There is but one solution, one safe-guard against these dangers. Peepholes must be cut so that students may at any time detect foul play behind the fences. Student opinion has been marshaled into unanimity on this issue. The University must comply.