THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL

IN THIS COUNTRY it might have started with President Lincoln, maybe in '76, or then again it might have happened at Plymouth Rock. But, wherever it was, the war against restrictions on races and religions is hitting through the college salient.

For us at Dartmouth the issue is on the mat. It has been injected into college discussions, and has been submitted to the student body in poll form. Right now the man in Green is not speaking for tradition and the past but for himself and the future. At Dartmouth the college man is learning the meaning of humility and fraternity. He's learning that it's more than "tolerance" he's after, it's "equality.

This fall, both the Interfraternity Council and The Dartmouth instigated action. On October 21, The Dartmouth primed the student body with a frontpage editorial. The theme was capped "Where Do We Stand?" and people started thinking about where they actually did stand. Fraternity men had a problem. Before most of them was the conflict between their own restrictive clauses, which national affiliation has imposed, and the desire to see these same clauses erased from the boards. Was it right to go against the rules of their own fraternity, an organization to which they had once pledged their allegiance?