The Editor of the HARVARD CRIMSON:

Dear Sir:

I have just read an Associated Press item which quotes from your editorial concerning the Employment Bureau. I am surprised to hear that the CRIMSON has taken such an attitude toward what is called the "red tape" of the bureau. In my opinion, the jobs handed out should go, first of all, to the students who really need money in order to remain in college. Of course I do not think that the jobs should be given to men just because they are poor, since, among any group of college men there are individuals entirely unsuited to the jobs of the Employment Bureau and unsuited to college life, as well. But the purpose and the policy of the Bureau always has been and always should be the rendering of assistance to students who are both needy and worthy. In order to accomplish this purpose, the Bureau must know something about the personal and intimate affairs of its applicants.

Perhaps I am a back-number and do not know the extent of what you call "the tyranny of so-called efficiency." I am merely basing my present opinions on what the Associated Press chose to quote from your editorial. But this I do know--my own college career was made possible by the Employment Bureau: I needed money and was willing to work. I was asked intimate questions by the Bureau, and I did not have too much pride to answer them. Had the Bureau shown the "indifference" you recommend, my college days might have ended prematurely.

Since you hold unflattering opinions of the Bureau, I should like you to consider one splendid compliment which the Bureau received from a Yale graduate. In June, 1920 I was offered the job of tutoring this Yale man's son, the offer coming through the Bureau. I accepted, and later, when the opportunity presented itself, I asked my employer why he was willing to entrust his son to the charge of a Harvard man. His answer was that he was willing to sacrifice his Yale feelings to the confidence he had in the Harvard Employment Bureau. ARTHUR C. WATSON '19   New Bedford, Mass.