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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 1895)
r b THE HESPERIAN corrupt practices acts, for municipal reform and for good government in general, a great part of the political wisdom of the younger men engaged has come to them from ex periences in college politics. It is almost wholly in the domain of col lege politics that there is and must bo an irrepressible conflict between the frat and the anti-frat. For all purposes of political intrigue tho organization of the fraternity men is indefinitely superior to that of tho barbarians. The game of politics as played by them is not the same as the game of pol itics when played by those who are all un pledged. It consequently follows that the two factions cannot work amicably together in the close relations of an open literary society. There may be a fair game with loaded dice if all the dice are loaded alike, but not if one man has loaded dice, tho other dice that are unloaded. So I should think there might be an amicable literary society made up entirely of fraternity people, as we know there can be of non fraternity people, but the two classes cannot play tho game of politics together, because they play it with different instruments. It is not a fair game, and only mutual distrust and dislike can result from trying to play it. My point is that politics is an integral part of tho life of an open literary society, one of tho most valuable parts in fact, and that to introduce a permanent line of cleavage makes it an unfair and unplayable'ganio and wrecks the society. You will pardon mo for having dropped back onto the old line of argumentation which occupied meso fully in tho fall of '84. Subsequent facts have so confirmed tho argu ments wo then used that tho tendency to exult is too much for a naturally weak nature. Wo said that the two old societies could live and thrive with the anti-fraternity amend ments in their constitutions, and they have. We said that fraternity members did not make good members of a literary society, and tho Philodicean diod. No society with fraternity mombers in it could hope to )iavo a more loyal or capable membership than did tho Philodicean. If that could not live, tho experiment might as well bo given up. And if it should be urged that lack of a hall and the facilities for making a society homo was the cause of death, the barbarian Delians started under tho same adverse con ditions, and .prospered. Wo are as nearly justified in writing q. e. d. after the propo sitions for which wo formerly battled as one can over be in political affairs. It may bo suggested that 1 have got a long ways from tho text with which I started, that of college politics as a school of right eousness. And yet it is the development of loyalty to a beneficent organization, and of willingness to work and fight for what one believes to bo right which constitutes what I consider a growth in righteousness through political experience. When a man moves that the secretary of the society cast its unanimous ballot to elect some other person to an oflice which ho wants himself, simply because he believes it for tho good of tho organization that matters should take this course, he gets a training in right conduct which few other experiences afford. And whon he has learned in the interests of that organization tho necessity of doing tho humblo thing, as woll as the conspicuous thing, and of sacrificing himself through wearying work to a cause or a party, ho has advanced far in his preparation for American citizenship. Yours always, Amos G, Waenku, '85. E. McGeo, '98, has a position in4tho Mcf . Cook high school. Miss Gather had a splendid story in the Overland Monthly for January. Elizabeth Shornson and Martha Oappoll spent tho holidays with their parents in Lincoln. Moso Barlow, the student who severely injured his eyes last year whilo at work in tho chemical laboratory has boon visiting, in Lincoln for a week or two. His oyos havo about recovered.
