STUDENT POLITICS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

While I find much of Steven Roberts' writing on student politics both informed and perceptive, I take serious exception to the thesis of his article in the latest Bookshelf ("Political Activity Gives Students Sense of Significance"). As Mr. Roberts would have it, "maturity came to student politics" when the disoriented radicals decided that they could accomplish more in the precincts than on the picket lines. In his view, student politics came of age intellectually and politically when the peace marchers gave up "waving signs and singing songs" in favor of "stuffing envelopes and pushing doorbells for Prof. Hughes (and) Rep. William Fitts Ryan...." I do not dispute Mr. Roberts' assertion that this transformation is a sign that maturity has come to a particular segment of student politics: namely that composed of the militants of the "peace movement." What I do dispute is his implicit identification of this segment with student politics as a whole.

Long before the peace marchers discovered the inefficacy of effervescence there were many students who realized that their political ideals could best be effected within the political process. Had Mr. Roberts paid some attention to such groups as the Young Democrats and Young Republicans during the period in which his heroic radicals were groping in their self-created void, he might have been less "astounded" at the "spectacle" of students doing the necessary if unexciting tasks of political campaigning.

Assuming that the peaceniks' new-found faith in democracy survives the disappointments of the Hughes campaign (and that the proliferation of coffee shops under the Hughes headquarters does not assume more than symbolic significance) I will be delighted to join Mr. Roberts in welcoming them to the fellowship of responsible men. But to argue, as does Mr. Roberts, that this awakening is something wondrous to behold is to lend support to the view that irresponsibility is the norm of student politics. I am glad that the peaceniks are acting their age--but couldn't we save our fatted calves for a more significant occasion? Barney Frank 1G,   Chairman, Policy Committee of the   National Federation of Collage   Young Democrats.