The policy of an undergraduate newspaper is an intangible essence at best but out of the tangle of journalistic theories and idealistic pipe dreams that invariably permeate the atmosphere of any college daily, one fact makes itself obvious: namely, that in a University composed of many different schools and institutions to the total of eight thousand of more students, no opinion can be typical of the whole. The number of undergraduate dailies that have fallen by the wayside in the attempt to strike the "typical undergraduate opinion" is legion.

The editorial writer must of necessity be supercritical or he would not be in the newspaper business, much less in that peculiar branch of sophisticated criticism that goes by the name of editorial writing. For aside from other considerations, it is the attempt of nearly every modern newspaper to lead rather than to portray public opinion in its editorial columns. The mail, published daily, and consisting of the interested contributions of enthusiastic or irate readers of the editorial columns is sufficient testimony to the diversity of opinion. And, as is obvious, such questions that may have two sides, representing enough partisan interest to evoke comment by mail to the editor of the CRIMSON, will be equally represented either in those miscellaneous contributions or through the channels presided over by the CRIMSON editors themselves.

Consequently it is the practice of the Harvard CRIMSON to welcome contributions and where space permits such comments as may emanate from the student body in response to a question of University interest will be published in detail. Only in this way may a medium of opinion be reached, opinion that is representative of the college at large. Otherwise the CRIMSON must rest upon the opinion of its editors in person, and as such, exist as a partisan and individual critic of the activities and movements that command interest among the body of students in the University.