The cause of the present period of political reaction was the principal theme of William Allen White's talk on "The Farce of the Parties" in the Living Room of the Union last evening.

Mr. White was a member of the sub-committee of the Resolutions Committee which drafted the present Republican platform. He was prominent in the progressive movement in 1912, and since has been active in the liberal wing of the Republican party.

Following a dinner in his honor given by the Student Liberal Club, he was introduced by Professor Bliss Perry.

"Political parties are built to fool the voters on economic issues, and not to clarify the issues," said Mr. White. "The party system in the United States was developed in and from the period in our history when political issues chiefly occupied the minds of American voters. Government until recent years was concerned chiefly with the use of various police powers. The industrial and economic life of the country was supposed to be a thing quite apart from its political life. But now economic problems are paramount issues. And American major parties are not made to discuss paramount issues. Hence upon economic issues both parties try to fool the voters; platforms are built not to state issues clearly but to confuse them.

"In each party a cult or sect of professionals has been built up much like the temple caste of the Jews two thousand years ago. These professionals, these Scribes and Pharisees are interested not in issues but in nominations and victories. It is their business to befuddle and deceive the voters and then to produce majorities. It is to parties so controlled that the nation turns today in time of grave economic crisis. If we are to progress as a nation we must break out of this iron cage of political caste. We must either have new parties--which is not necessary,--or a new partisanship and a new kind of party organization.

"If we do not go forward, if we stop development along economic lines in government, the American ideal dies. For we must now have economic democracy for the twentieth century as we have had political democracy in the nineteenth century. If our ideal dies, the state which is organized to protect that ideal becames a mere shell." Mr. White ended his talk by an optimistic note, declaring that conservatism and reaction so evident now following the war are passing phases of the world's shell-shock and war-weariness, and that all the altruism and all the self-scarce which America put into the war will be regenerated and come to flower and fruit in the coming decades.

After concluding his talk, Mr. White asked the audience to put questions to him which he would endeavor to answer.