To the Editor of the Crimson:

It seems to me especially significant at this time that the Harvard Student Union last night elected as President John Stillman '40, a student who is a representative of as wide a diversity of campus interests as the Lampoon, the crew and hockey team.

When the most conservative and reactionary elements on the campus find it expedient to form a political organization, we may rest assured that the ivory tower no longer stands. The mere existence of such an organization, coupled with the world wide spread of fascism, has shown Harvard students that traditional political inactivity no longer signifies a tacit faith in ever-widening American democracy. Democracy today is threatened by dynamic and fast-working enemies, and democracy can only be preserved by political action on the part of its adherents. Thus the great mass of unaffiliated Harvard students are registering a vote of indifference to the outcome of a struggle which is today engulfing the entire world, and which can very definitely "happen here."

The response to the Refugee Fund Drive indicates the partial breaking down of that indifference, but aiding a few of the millions of sufferers from fascism abroad is not enough. We must not only give first aid, but we must work for the prevention of a disease which might some day create American refugees.

Only when Stillman's promise to make the Harvard Student Union represent the whole campus has been fulfilled will we know that the great majority of Harvard students are interested enough in the preservation and extension of American democracy to take political action to that end. Leo Marx '41.