The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-02
COLLEGIATE MAN IN POLITICS.


 clubs. The topic was The College Man in Politics" and amons the speakers was Mayor Georgn ,J Lam ders of New Britain, a graduate of Yale who has made good, as the say ing is. as a political leader. He was green when he was elected to the chief magistracy of that city, but by bringing upon the duties of the office | his college experience scftened and | trimmed by business discipline he was enabled to constantly add tothe well-being of all concerned
 In the course of his remarks, which in a sense explained why the college l man so often fails in public life, he had some interesting things to say, He said for example; The trouble lies in the fact that we are started wrong in the universities. Young men of fine character and the best of intention find themselves drawn away by social lines from others less fortunately sit uated They drift apart. The men in societies cling together, seeing not enough of the outsiders and thereby narrowing their own view of life in- stead of widening it. The seriousness of this question no thinking man will dispute. At Princeton we have the president recommending radical changes in the club system At New Haven last year the Shelf men out side the societies revolted and com bined against the society ticket This kind of thing builds up a structure of salf-satisfaction which must be levelled in the early years following graduation, and the reason bring | il up here is because if university men are to do their share in politics successfully they must combine with ! their university training the quality | VI iNNobHiS1h Nolt tll oil AHe part or the non-college man, In my humble opinion. if the college man is to do his share in politics efficiently let him first forget his superiority of educa- ton and mental training and get line on how the average man looks at things"
 It will he admitted that Mayor Landsrs has correctly diagnosed the cleavage power of college societies and clubs, but we are not sure that their abolishment, which is practical ly what President Wilson contem- plates, would accomplish anything. No matter what becomes of the col- lege man after he has graduated it is impossible to get him while lie is an undergraduate to ascept any other standards of conduct that those which are college bred His place in politics. for example, is so far ahead Of him that with the exception of useful lec- lures and addresses upon citizenship the man does not live who can make him measure his behavior in college by what it will have to be when he gets out into the world He is to be compared with the son whose experi- enced parent finds it impossible to i'm press with his mature wisdom. If there were not societies and clubs formal in their organization in the universities and colleges there would be some other form of segregation tc take their place and then the same old problem would present itself. In. questionably this human drifting apart in college on account of socia
 tastes and temperamental differences
 makes 1t more difficult for college
 men to enter full-hedged the univer. sity of practical politics, but in oul
 humble judgment Mayor Landers hits
 the nail squarely on the head wher
 he advises college men to leave behind
 them within the college walls al
 pride of education Of all the influ.
 ences best calculated to upset Z
 young man about to make the battIt
 of life the caddish view that a col lege degree raises him automaticall, above his less favored fellows is that The man who has that view succeed, in politics only after the fallacv O
 his Judgment has been demonstrate, to his complete satisfaction.
 The only possible way we can se out of the trouble is to cultivate
 spirit of democracy among under
 graduates as a result of which the,
 will learn instinctivelv that courtes,
 and consideration constitute the bes
 working policy in every walk of life
 that the man who holds himself su Y perior to his brother may be accepte d at once as being of much sn1alle s measure by two-thirds than he think, '. The undergraduate who rejects tha t rule of measurement may properly b S left to learn his lesson when he un r dertakes to make his brother swallo, - him at his own valuation In otbs l. words there is no such thing as col $ lege men in political life. It is th t man every time who succeeds wbetb t CT he has ever seen the inside of l. college class room or not.