Seventy years ago this week, a group of student petitioners wrote a letter to the editor of The Amherst Student announcing the creation of a petition signed by more than 50 undergraduates that requested the removal of the Student Council. The petition stated, "it has become increasingly apparent that one of the deadest limbs of the Amherst 'body politic' is [the] Student Council." The petitioners declared that the mission of the Student Council, as stated in the Student Handbook, was to be "the active working organ" and "the representative group" of the student body. Under the Student Council's own constitution, it was also required to "preserve and regulate beneficial customs and traditions of Amherst." According to the petitioners, the Student Council failed to meet any of those requirements. The petitioners proposed that coaches and heads of the Athletic Department should handle the athletic duties formerly allocated to the Council, while fraternity presidents should take on the Council's former dance responsibilities. They also asked for a discussion of the petition to take place during a student chapel.

In the following publication of The Student, Student Council member Kendall B. Debevoise '35, responded to the petitioners' letter. Debevoise declared that a class-representing body was unquestionably necessary. "Granting for the moment that we, who have been elected, are incapable of carrying out our duties as prescribed in the handbook, the question still remains as to whether we wish to abolish Student Council as an institution," he wrote. "I am anxious to see the Student Council retained especially since the interest of this controversy will mean a Council next year which will be more than ever responsible to the students for its actions and more than eager to justify the faith which will have been placed in them." He went on to discredit the petitioners' letter, explaining that many of the Council's motions did not become realized because of financial constraints and not due to the attitude of the Council. Class President A. A. Mason '34 also wrote a letter to the editor expressing his belief that "the backers of the plan to abolish Student Council have not taken all the factors into consideration, and that they have distorted others to support their case."