HYSTERIA CREATES "REDS"

Is this charge against the colleges justified? There is no denying that radicalism is an active force among American undergraduates today. Student strikes, conferences, and youth movements have become familiar occurrences.

But it seems to us that President Hutchins of the University of Chicago, in a recent address, came very close to the truth when he characterized present-day radicalism in the colleges as an "hysterical reaction to the depression." He said: "I am farfrom denying that there are radical students. I suggest, though, that we will notfind the reason for their attitude in theteaching they have received. We shall findthe reason for it in the world in which theyhave had to live. That world is one ofchaos." Dr. Hutchins went on to state that attempts to curtail or stamp out this attitude only resulted in creating "student reds," because students resented the suggestion that they were not able or could not be trusted to think about anything but football and fraternities. This recalls a remark of President Hopkins, that "thequickest way to eliminate Americanism isby curtailing knowledge and speech."

The "depression theory" of radicalism has been borne out at Dartmouth during the past few years. Radicalism was a negligible factor in undergraduate thought at Hanover five or six years ago, but ever since the early thirties it has assumed steadily increasing proportions. In 1933-4 it reached a new high with the meteorlike career of Steeplejack across the Hanover sky, but this declamatory publication died out as suddenly as it began, and the radicals were still very much on the outside. In 1934 an abortive attempt was made to publish a daily paper in competition with The Dartmouth to give "the other side" a means of expression. Finally, about a year ago, the radical group secured control of The Dartmouth itself and also of the Junto, the other principal clearing house of undergraduate opinion at Hanover.