Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/73

 a large percentage of the Zete's should be in the cast and in other places of emolument and honor; if Skinny Bill is in charge of the Mask and Bauble play then we are not surprised to find the whole Beta chapter taking tickets at the door. It is pretty hard when some member of the family is holding the bag for one not to try to get his fingers at least upon a few coins.

This form of graft does not always put the worst or the most incapable men into positions of trust; on the contrary the men selected frequently perform their tasks admirably, but it is simply another phase of the spoils system; it teaches a bad social principle, and is a form of graft detrimental to the best interests of the college. It is at best a weakener of the character of those who work it.

"I can not conceive," a senior recently said to me, "that any college man would ever fail to vote for a brother or for a friend if he were a candidate for office."

"Not even if there were a much better man running?" I asked.

"No fellow under those circumstances would be willing to admit that there are any better men," was his reply. But it is a rather vicious accompaniment of graft that makes it impossible for a man to recognize merit in any but his friends.

These things which I have been discussing are encouraged in college by two or three things. If we must speak the truth such practices are not at all uncommon in the business world, and students know it. The representative of one of the best known men's furnishing stores in Chicago not long ago ad-