We wonder what Mr. Upton Sinclair who so scathingly attacks American colleges and universities on the charge that they are controlled by ultra-conservative financiers who want only "accepted", doctrines taught and who smack not at all of the liberalism and broad-mindedness needed by leaders of our education,--we wonder what Mr. Upton Sinclair will do when he hears that Mr. Howard Eliott '81 has been chosen as the new president of the Board of Overseers at Harvard? No doubt he will clap his hands and shout from the house-tops: "I told you it was so! Here now is the shining example".

For Mr. Eliott's record in the financial world must make him, as a leader of education, anathema to Mr. Sinclair. As the ex-president and chairman of the directors of the Northern Pacific Railroad, as director of the Western Telegraph Company and of the National Security Company and as "a member of the executive committee of numerous other public service corporations", Mr. Eliott has a series of titles which link him unquestionably with "big business". And it is to such corporate interests that Mr. Sinclair objects when they take our educational institutions under their wings.

Undoubtedly the "Goose-Step" author exaggerates and asserts a mistaken opinion when he makes the blanket charge that the control exercised on our educational institutions by "big business" is always pernicious. But he proclaims a truth when he contends that such control leaves a Damoclean sword forever over the head of liberalism in our colleges. The financier-educators may cut the thread at any moment.

It is with the hope that this sword may never threaten at Harvard that the CRIMSON extends a hearty welcome to Mr. Eliott in his new position. In spite of the cautious and reactionary attitude toward education of his "big business" world, the CRIMSON hopes that Mr. Eliott will always be found on the side of liberalism when troublesome educational problems are to be decided. May he prove Mr. Upton Sinclair wrong.