Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Mt. Washington snows are favorite practice slopes for Ski Club members. Lack of Practice Hampers the Ski Club in lntercollegiate Meets Skiing at Harvard has always been hampered by the dearth of suitable nearby slopes, especially for jumping and cross-country work, and, until recently, by the lack of official recognition for the Ski Team. The nucleus of the Club, its most expert skiers, form the Ski Team and represent Harvard in intercollegiate competition. The 1943-44 season was the last in which the wartime Club could enter a Team in many intercollegiate meets. Even with the aid of '46 skiers George Shedd and john E. Thayer, the lack of practice told against Harvard in the Lake Placid and Dartmouth meets, but Team members did capture first, third, and fourth places in the A.M. C. Wildcat race, and competed in the Gibson Trophy race. Despite the difficulties of competition, undergraduate interest in skiing continued during the war. The Club's 27-bunk cabin in Pinkham Notch, New Hampshire, con- structed by the members on land given in 1939 by Harvard's noted mountaineer Bradford Washburn remained open. Both undergraduate skiers and returning veterans fastened their skis to their auto ski racks and drove up on occasional winter week ends, or spent summer days and fall week ends clearing brush, repairing and enlarging the cabin, and building up the community woodpile. The 1946-47 season saw the Ski Club's membership begin to increase again to its present size of over seventy. Under the capable leadership of the next two years, including Secretary George Heller '46, the Club returned to intercol- legiate competition and sponsored several meets of its own- with Dartmouth, with Yale and Amherst, and the Harvard midwinter Intercollegiate International at Bromley, and an increased program is planned for the future. The Crimson Yachtsmen Won a First Place in the 1948 Olympics Faced by the narrow, meandering Charles River, the casual visitor to Cambridge would not suspect Harvard of being a great nautical power among American colleges. Such has, however, been the fact ever since the founding of the Harvard Yacht Club in 1887 and Harvard supremacy reached its zenith during '46 members' stay at College. Harvard members controlled the Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Associa- tion, Dave Noyes '44 and George O'Day '45 held the presi- dency successively in 1943 and 1944, with O'Day and Douglas Danner '46 successive chairmen of the MacMillan Cup. Among the many honors falling to Harvard yachtsmen were the Greater Boston championship for four straight years, the Oberg Trophy for three, and the Wood, Danmark, and Schell Trophies. A Dinghy Fleet During the stress of wartime it was only these few experts who kept Harvard's name before the sailing world. Of Club equipment and finances there were none, and of mem- bers there were few. Paul van Buren '46, Commodore of the Club in 1945, and Owen C. Torrey '47 the following year began to widen Club membership again, seeking to attract inexperi- enced as well as seasoned yachtsmen and to provide a dinghy fleet for members not sailing racing craft of their own. Har- vard's name continues to appear among the winners in im- portant races-Torrey and Hilary H. Smart '47 carried off the Intercollegiate Star Class Championship two years running, and Smart achieved the greatest individual honor a yachtsman can attain in the summer of 1948, when he and his father, racing for the United States in Olympic competition, won the Star Class yachting event at Torquay, England. Hilary Smart '47 friglatj and his father Paul H. Smart '14, con- gratulate each other on winning the Star Class Olympic yachting championship off Torquay, England, August 6, 1948 in their boat, the Hilarius. 'iv

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The Young Republican Club still has Faith in the Grand Old Party Believing that a college political organization need not necessarily have its feet firmly planted in the air, a planning committee including Sturtevant Hobbs '46 and presided over by William A. Rusher 3-L founded the Young Republican Club in November, 1947. Despite its youth on the Harvard scene and its practice of charging dues to discourage the sunshine patriots and professional joiners, the Club's membership has grown rapidly. Town Meetings Groundwork for the Republican Club was laid by the Republican Open Forum, instituted at Harvard in the fall of 1947, also by Rusher. The basic idea was that of GOP party Sturtevant Hobbs '46 flepj escorts Massachusetts' ex-Lt. Gov. Arthur W. Coolidge to a Republican Open Forum. leaders Saltonstall, Stassen, Baldwin, and Morse, and many such forums were organized on campuses and in cities through- out the country. Such prominent statesmen as Republican Congressman Christian A. Herter, head of the Congressional Committee to survey European reconstruction and recovery needs, addressed the Harvard group on topics ranging from foreign policy to such domestic problems as regulation of in- dustry and labor and control of the Communist menace. One function of the Open Forum was to poll audience reaction after each lively town meeting type discussion on a topic of national interest, the results of the balloting being sent to central head- quarters in Washington to assist in guiding Republican policy makers. 12831- President Bill Rusher Qrwzterj plans campaign strategy. Law School men have taken a leading part in HYRC. Mock Convention In answer to the need for more direct support of Re- publican principles than could be afforded by discussion groups alone, the Young Republican Club was organized. Besides its frequent open meetings, with prominent GOP guest speakers such as Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Arthur W. Coolidge, the Club circulates a bi-weekly newsletter on its activities and political developments in general. Pledged to action, the Young Republicans engaged in numerous verbal skirmishes with political opponents at Harvard and conducted a vociferous mock nomination convention, which resulted in the nomination of Senator Vandenberg. As election time drew near, the Club set up an information service supplying the details of residence and registration requirements and absentee voting privileges. Results of the 1948 voting somewhat dampened GOP ardor at Harvard as well as elsewhere, but Young Republican Club strategists point out that Harvard student sentiment on the eve of election indicated an overwhelming 2-1 Republican majority, and that the election returns merely proved, there- fore, that there aren't enough HYRC's. Bob Means '46 politicking for Stassen at the Republican Club's mock convention. Vandenberg was the winner.

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Harvard Chess Experts Dominate the intercollegiate Tournaments Not a few members of '46 felt themselves during the war years like pawns being moved about a chessboard, but it was a small and select elite that were able to move the pieces about the boards themselves. These were the members of the Harvard Chess Club, who despite their own dwindling numbers and the disappearance of most of their opponents, put Harvard by the end of the war in position to win perma- nently the intercollegiate Belden-Stevens Trophy. Awarded for competition between Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Columbia, to be retained by the club winning it for live successive years, the trophy had been retained for four years by the Chess Club as it faced its 1947-48 season. The Chess Club's 1943 team gained possession of the cup by a 3-1 victory in New York's Marshall Chess Club. A 2-2 tie the next year permitted Harvard to keep the trophy. The Club won over Yale in 1945, and tied with Yale, defeating Princeton, in 1946, to gain its fourth leg on the trophy. Ten Seconds to Move As Chess Club membership grew again after the war, the members renewed their intra-club competition to de- termine the strongest players, who form the team. Harvard also entered teams in the Boston Metropolitan Chess League, and won first and third places in sectional competition. The club stages exhibitions, and has sponsored a round of the National Open, which saw some of the nation's best players pitted against each other in the Lowell Housejunior Common Room. For undergraduate competition, the Club has put on Rapid Transit Tournaments, ten seconds being allowed for each move, and hopes to arouse interest in Inter-House competition. Frank Pierce '46 fin V-12 uniformj plans his winning attack as the clock ticks off the minutes in a wartime Harvard-Columbia chess match. Nicholas Van Slyck '44 conducts at a Music Club Chamber Orchestra rehearsal. The Music Club Runs its own Chorus and Chamber Orchestra Harvard's Music Club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1948, and could look ahead to an active future, sponsoring its own chorus, Harvard's only chamber orchestra, and a popular series of House concerts. Founded in 1898, the Club has numbered among its members in the past such famous names in music as composer Randall Thompson '20, music critic Virgil Thompson '22, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Harvard Professor Walter Piston '24, and the well-known conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein '39. The gilt palms of past successes withered during the war, however, and not until the 1945-46 season, under the leadership of President Nicholas Van Slyck '44, did the Club revive. Former member and composer-pianist Professor Edward Ballantine '07 served as faculty adviser, followed by Assistant Professor Irving Fine '37. The Radcliffe and Har- vard Clubs jointly presented Stravinsky's Periejzlaone in 1945. With talented pianist Noel Lee '46 as president in 1946-47, the Club formed its chamber orchestra and adopted a policy of playing yet unknown contemporary music and rarely performed older works, pieces which the public might not otherwise hear. At the Fiftieth Anniversary Concert in the spring of 1948, a successful program included the Bach Triple Concerto in A-minor for Hute, violin, and piano, with Noel Lee at the piano, a work never known to have been performed, and also the very new Soneztine for Clarinet and Strings by Club member Nicholas Van Slyck. The Club's choral group pre- sented in succeeding years a Stravinsky mass and the work Lex Nocei by the same composer. House concerts and monthly talks and performances by Boston symphony musicians rounded out the Music Club's full schedule.