e have seen you on the green, lighting candles for solidarity. We have watched you composting your meals everyday, just to do your part. We have heard you talk about electric cars, police brutality, and freedom of speech. We have read your columns in The Dartmouth, even if no one else has. We have seen your frustration, your anger, and your desperation when confronted with your friends’ conservative apathy.

We are calling you now: all the liberals, the progressives, the Leftists, the socialists, everyone whose political beliefs defy conventional labels, but especially for all the unassuming, idealistic reformers, it is time to bring activism back to Dartmouth, and the Free Press will tell the story.

With all due respect to our friends at Young Democrats, liberal and progressive expression at Dartmouth is, as a rule, fragmentary, short-lived, and ineffective. Why are rallies for peace, understanding, and tolerance outdrawn by intramural soccer games? Some would answer that Dartmouth students are simply uninformed and uncaring. We believe that social homogeneity and widespread ignorance are simply drowning out the imagination and energy of left-thinking intellectuals on campus.

Based on this premise, we have attempted to create a publication that will provide a forum for activist speech. We expect and hope that our staff will represent the full range of liberal and alternative opinions available in the Dartmouth community. The Free Press does not aim to build bland consensus, but rather to inspire dissent and genuine discourse.

We feel that our first issue has succeeded in this endeavor. The newspaper has been a collaborative effort in nearly every sense of the word. At the very least, we have succeeded at presenting diverse perspectives on many different subjects that inform and sometimes entertain.

Most of all, we hope that this newspaper inspires you to do something productive with your opinion. Shout about this newspaper with your hall-mates. Discuss controversies over dinner. Or if you feel really strongly about something, blitz us in the form of an article. If you stage a protest, we want to hear your story. If you see injustice, inequality or hypocrisy in the world around you, we want to know. Freedom of speech at Dartmouth should not just be a vague principle. This newspaper will work to make it a reality – Welcome to the Dartmouth Free Press.