There hasn't been anything like an organized faction in the council since the short-lived "freshman caucus," which died out towards the end of the government's first year. Today's council is clearly a cohessive group, a group ment, and drafting the reports and holding the meetings which being a government entails.

But the council has become a vehicle for teaching its members about bureaucracy rather than the champion of its constituents.

For future Congressional staffers, second tier administrators, and maybe business managers, the process of closing and re-opening nominations, determining election results with obtuse formulae and dealing with the headaches such actions cause is probably excellent training.

BUT LAST WEEK the administration, to the dismay of virtually every Harvard undergraduate, made the houses and the Yard dry. And the council, supposedly the students' voice, was too busy arguing about election procedures to speak up about the new drinking policy.

Questioned if the council's slow start up will keep student concerns from getting the attention they deserve, Melendez counters that "there is no important policy that the council is in a hurry to organize for." But there are such issues--or there should be.

A student government which turns ambitious, enthusiastic students into ambitious, capable administrators has a place at this University. In the past, the council has become such a student government, winning the praise and respect of students and the administration in the process. But the just-completed election shows that after gaining its place at Harvard the council has drifted away from those it claims to represent.