Editorial, March 9, 1934, Page 2

        Newspaper editors are becoming more and more aware of what they choose to call "the red menace" in the colleges of the United States. The last issue of the "Smith College Weekly" contains a reprint of a news article published in one of the Hearst papers in Massachusetts which indicates that the more liberal students of our colleges are undermining the structure of democracy.

        We do not think that a questioning attitude on the part of the student should be construed as basically unwholesome, nor do we think that democratic government will suffer unnecessarily as a result of student interest in its workings. If editorial writers like to believe that blind devotion to nationalistic causes is expected of the students in our colleges, then what, we should like to know, are students expected to learn in college?

        If intellectual honesty is to be flouted by teachers and students alike because of certain taboos which are inherent in the educational system; if we are to talk only when we agree with authority because disagreement is likely to spell disaster, then it seems to us that we have been misinformed by those who made much of the broadening influence of higher education.

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May 20, 2004