(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Governor Woodrow Wilson's address of last Saturday brings out many points of very special interest in these days of strenuous and earnest social reform movement. There is a common error nowadays into which the over-zealous reformer is very apt to fall, namely that of judging the value of a principle or an action solely by its indirect consequences. Thus, in private property rights, the socialist sees an evil, not because the holding of private property is in itself a wrong, but because evil has resulted from the abuse of this right. In like manner he declares the present systems to be an evil because evils have resulted from its abuse.

Governor Wilson pointed out with remarkable clearness that the majority of the present day evils arise not from the fundamentals of the "present system", but from its abuses. The cry of the earnest, over-zealous socialist, therefore, is "Abolish a system which permits of such atrocities." The cry of every honest, conservative reformer, on the other hand, is "Enforce the present system in all the purity of its fundamental principles, and the evils will no longer have any place". They are both striving for the same worthy end, but one seeks to accomplish it by the destruction of some positive goods, in order to prevent the possibility of indirect evils--in short, the end justifies the means--,whereas the other wishes to uphold positive good and destroy evil by a direct attack at its root, that is, individual abuse of a legitimate right. "Does the house-wife," argues the conservative, "cease to give bread to her children because some of them have at times made themselves sick by over-eating? No, she keeps a careful watch over the children to see that they do not turn a perfectly legitimate appetite into a sin of gluttony by abusing it." Yet if the socialistic principle of judging the right or wrong of an act by its indirect consequences were pushed to its logical conclusion. The poor children should not eat for eating would be an evil. R. D. SKINNER '15.