"Honl Solt --"

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I feel slightly out of place in writing to you on the following subject at this time, while your columns are filled with those affairs of war that are absorbing all interest. But I also feel that such a letter as this of mine should be written, and I hope that you will find room for it in your paper.

There is in New York at the present time an after-the-theatre amusement place called the "Coccanut Grove." It is as disgusting and immoral an exhibition as has ever been staged in America. It is, of course, the result of its very much less harmful predecessor, the "Midnight Frolic," as that was the more risque result of its predecessor, "Castles in the Air." That there should be such a place as the "Cocoanut Grove" in New York is not surprising--all great cities have their "tough joints"; and there is always an audience that will flock in great numbers to such a production. The shame of this special case is that the "Cocoanut Grove" is patronized by those people who are supposed to be helping to set the standards of behavior and taste not only for New York, but for the whole country, and among these patrons are, inevitably, Harvard graduates and undergraduates. That such a place should be habituated by men and women who are wont to term themselves ladies and gentlemen points to many things--in particular, to that unwillingness that has become an inability to see straight, to look at things from a healthy point of view; it points to a decadent standard among those whose opinion influences not alone the standard of morals for the community, but the standard of politics, of art, of sport, and of all life; it points to a negligence which becomes criminal when it allows young girls and young men who are to become leaders when of age to start their careers by publicly proclaiming that they approve of vice and immorality being shoved forward into the limelight to be seen at $25 a table.

I do not suppose that many will heed such a letter as this--no past experience of others lead me to such a hope. I simply feel that there should at least be one voice raised from Harvard which has had for so long the standards of gentlemen as its standard, decrying the patronage and open approval of such a place as this, and showing that the evils which have been evidenced by this patronage to be existing in the country, have not passed unnoticed over the heads of those whose duty it will some day be to remedy them.  CHRISTOPHER LA FARGE '20