(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld. Only letters under 400 words can be printed because of space limitations.)

To the Editor of the Crimson:

The annual Seniors class farce, sub-titled "class election," is again taking place. The Senior council has appointed a nominating committee which in return has re-nominated the Senior council for all the class marshalships. The nominations for minor offices were made not with the idea of picking the best men for the offices, but, as one member of the senior council put it, men were selected who could "get the votes.' In other words, the nominating committee's ideas as tow ho could get the votes seem to be the controlling factor in this election. Therefore, why not dispense with the election entirely and let the nominating committee appoint its favorites without further ado?

For four years now is has been assumed that the members of the class are incompetent to nominate as well as elect their own officers. A veritable hierarchy has appeared. You either vote "yes" or you don't vote at all. The nominating committee makes a pretty pretense of pacifying all parties by picking a few stuffed shirts from the ranks of what they consider the representative elements in the school; a few club men, a few commuters; and a few athletes are scattered indiscriminately among the nominations.

This is our last opportunity to express our will as a class. We the undersigned are tired of being asked to vote time after time since our Freshman Union Committee days for the same conglomeration of quasi-representative names. Now as Seniors we are asked to swallow the final cup of hemlock, rendering us dead to our rights and privileges, the great mass of us merely so many votes to be mechanically considered by that mastermind, the nominating committee, the answer to the dreams of a power-crazed Stalin.

Despite the feebleness of our lonely voices, tuned to the strains of a lost cause, perhaps the echo of our complaint will resound some day when Harvard tradition does not mean Harvard hypocrisy, and the name of democracy is not defiled by self-perpetuating committees.

We call upon all those who feel as we do to refrain from voting at all. Perhaps by our very silence, the insignificance of these planned and plotted elections will be apparent. You can fool some of the people some of the time . . . but four years of subtle tyranny is too much. Sic semper tyrrannis. T. Ryden Skinner '38.   Jay W. Kaufmann '38.

(Ed. note--Under the petitions system all Mr. Kaufmann and Mr. Skinner had to do was to contact 23 of their classmates and obtain the necessary signatures to put any man they wish up for any position).