Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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ge avi-1. Iii 5 MUS- Members of Harvard's guerilla unit gather behind the Business School to learn how to use hand grenades and to practice commando tactics. report of this also carried the following editorial: Our fleet still has a marked superiority over Nippon's. So long as we maintain that edge, and so long as we hang on to our iron clad defense line in the Pacific, we are safe from the Land of the Rising Sun .... May was active. The largest riot in five years followed the kidnapping by an M. I. T. fraternity of Rochester, radio comedian, from the Smoker. A few days later, as Freshmen began to file their applications for the various Houses, reports in the newspapers indicated that France was cracking. Of more immediate concern, however, was the new Willkie-for President Club that had been started by the inhabitants of an obscure room in Gray's Hall. Events moved quickly, now. As preparations for thejubilee were well under way, the whole issue of College versus Tutoring Schools was brought to a head. From the Dean's office came a decree absolutely for- bidding any student to enter or make use of these schools. An old tradition of Harvard Square was at an end. Towards the end of May, a Freshman climbed a tree and threatened to remain there until a Radcliffe girl consented to give him a date. The day that France was divided in two by the German armies, the Crimson, now virulent and vitu- perative, printed an editorial .... lf America is truly an- xious to remain free of the war at the cost of a German victory -and this is the grim possibility we must face,-then the first essential is to get rid of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and the present administration as quickly as possible. Final examinations came in a hotjune. And the class, disbanding to go home, found itself no longer Freshmen. It did not know it, but the historical forces that had been at work throughout the past three decades, culminating in the fierce conflict in Europe, were sweeping towards their shores and towards their own lives. The last Crimson of the academic year 1939-1940 came out. On that day, France capitulated. Y Throughout the year 1940-1941, college life continued much as it had before. Early in November, during the heat of Presidential elections, Wendell Willkie with entourage passed through Cambridge, and in Harvard Square spoke a few moments to a crowd of students who jammed street and sidewalk to hear him. The winter passed, and spring brought with it a three-day battle between the Lazmpoon and the Crimron. Then, when the Lazmpoon had Hnally released the Crimronk kidnapped president and as broken windows were being mended, students turned their attention to a more important matter. At Annapolis, Harvard's star negro lacrosse player had been forced to remain out of the Navy game. This display of prejudice and lack of courtesy on the part of Annapolis's administration brought in its wake cries of protestafrom the liberals of the student body. Petitions were circulated, editorials and letters were written, meetings were held . . . until, finally, Mr. Bingham was forced to declare that henceforth Harvard would play no college unless 'l15lL fe 1 fn

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Jia mm! Caddy. . . the number of students who planned to major in Government was larger than the number in any other single field. A few days later, students' attention was drawn to Bertrand Russell's clash with Gloria Kay and Justice McGeehan of New York City. Harvard, with the overtones of the Browder incident still ringing in its ears, had suddenly appointed the philoso- pher to a teaching position here. The Boston press yelled in protest against the appointment of a man who entertained such immoral Views on sex, love, and marriage. Mickey Sullivan, red-baiting Cambridge politician, hit the front page by holding up for half an hour a Student Union production of Waiting for Lefty. Ironically enough, Mr. Sullivan did not realize that the other half of the Student Union's program was Archibald MacLeish's anti-fascist Fall of the City. In the early spring, a Freshman amateur hour took place, and a few days later, a peace rally, one thousand strong, at which Norman Thomas was the chief speaker was held in Memorial Hall. Copey gave his annual reading just before his birthday. The same issue of the Crimson that carried the Yard walks are widened for Navy formations Symbolic of Harvard's alertness in wartime, the air-raid siren on top of Widener sends its warning alarm in all directions i14l'

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his-if f mira? a a , Q , the entire Harvard team could participate in the game. For liberal opinion throughout the university this was a victory, and the subject was finally dropped. In june, however, as parents and alumni began to flock into Cambridge for the graduation of the Class of 1941, a most awkward paradox confronted them, a paradox that seemed to summarize the divided attitudes of both the college and of the nation. For, up until the very moment of the graduation ceremony itself, seniors in caps and gowns, bearing placards protesting the pro-war attitude of the college administration, paraded incessantly before the gates of the Yard. Meanwhile, President Conant, only recently returned from England, was accompanied on graduation day by the elaborately be-robed Lord Halifax. At the ceremony, with what seemed at the time like an unnecessary amount of pro- British fanfare, he gave up his seat to the Ambassador from Great Britain. It was not, on the whole, a very popular gesture. . . and there were some embarassing moments beneath that hotjune sun. During the summer months, Russia declared war against Germany. Whether it was because of this or not that students changed their opinions concerning America's position Two lieutenants, in their summer and winter uniforms, check the luggage of newly arrived naval officers in front of Littauer. Students, air-raid wardens, white-helmeted auxiliary policemen, ensigns and visitors learn how incendiary bombs should be extinguished. H61