CRIMSON PRINTS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, MARKING CLOSE OF TENTH YEAR IN PRESENT OFFICES

The Harvard CRIMSON, today celebrating the tenth anniversary of its present building, is the product of 53 years of strife and labor. It has a history of hardships overcome, of desperate competitions won, and of ever increasing success.

"I won't philosophize, I will be read, was the motto of the Magenta, the ancestor of the present CRIMSON. And for practically 53 years the Magenta and later the CRIMSON have been read. read widely, by three generations of Harvard students. Since its first publication by the members of the Junior class on January 24, 1873, what is now the University daily has held an important part in Harvard life, functioning first as a literary fortnightly, then as a weekly newspaper, and finally as the daily which it is today.

Crimson Alternated With Advocate

In its early days the CRIMSON--the name Magenta was abandoned in May, 1875--could not have been called a newspaper. Appearing alternate weeks with the Advocate, the college literary magazine then as now, the CRIMSON devoted little attention to he news of the day. A column enitled "Brevities" and considerable space in the editorial column was all the notice current events received. In 1878, to be sure, one of the CRIMSON editors was put in charge of a column on amateur sports, but otherwise the magazine differed little from the Advocate.

This similarity and the hot competition it caused, the first of several such struggles in the CRIMSON's history,, was one of the reasons for the gradual swing of the contents of the CRIMSON away from literary essays and poems to matters of the day. Although the fortnightly CRIMSON contained among its editorial boards such names as William Roscoe Thayer, Robert Bacon, and Owen Wister, it had its narrowest escape from extinction in 1882, nine years after its birth. Financially on the rocks, the CRIMSON was all but ready to surrender and be absorbed by its rival; only by a margin of one vote was the merger project defeated.

Herald Had Lively Career

Instead of surrendering to the Advocate, the CRIMSON changed in form from a fortnightly magazine to a weekly newspaper. And immediately it found another and more virulent competitor.

In the Harvard Daily Herald the University had its first successful daily newspaper. Founded in January, 1882, the Herald started out manfully into a field where all previous adventures had failed. With great enthusiasm, the enterprising editors brought forth a four-page newspaper destined for a brief but lively career.

Chief among the features of the Herald's history was the extras it published, the first of their kind in college journalism. One of the editors writes concerning the first extra, an eight-page edition containing a full report of the winter athletic games: "The copy was written in the gymnasium as the games progressed and was carried to the office by half a dozen messenger boys. It was put in type as fast as received. The last event was the tug of war, lasting several minutes. Before this was finished a full report of all preceding events was set up. The line "The tug-of-war was won by '8--was already in type. The winning class was signalled across the Yard, the one part of type was dropped into form, and the press was started. The extras were in the hands of the students as they came across the Yard."

Combined With Crimson

Three more extras of this sort, and a, daily column of "Telegraphic Brevities" which were brought out on a horse-car in the early hours of the morning from the Boston Herald office and which put the news of the world in the hands of the students via the Harvard Daily Herald, gave the latter sheet much prestige. However, it ran for only a year and a half under its original name, for in October, 1883, it consolidated with the CRIMSON under the title of Herald-Crimson. A year later the name became Daily Crimson, remaining so until 1891, when it assumed its present form.

In 1884 the Daily Crimson measured about 14 by 11 inches. and consisted of four pages of four columns each. On the front page the left column was devoted to advertisements, while the other three contained news and often communications. There was not much variety of system in headlines and those used were small and light. An article started at the top of the second column often ran into the third. The second page was devoted to editorialss, which ran into two columns, while advertisements filled columns three and four. On the third page, the printed matter consisted principally of notices and "Facts and Rumors", and on the fourth were run the smaller articles and comments.

'90's Were Gay for Crimson

The opening of the last decade of the nineteenth century found many evidences of growth in the CRIMSON. In 1885 the paper, bitten once again by the literary bug, started a monthly supplement, and thus originated the Harvard Monthly, which soon established its own identity and for many years competed with the Advocate. At this time also an intercollegiate press association was formed, including the Yale News and the Daily Princetonian, and with the change of the Harvard paper's name to Rarvard CRIMSON in 1891 a now era began. The CRIMSON was forced to enlarge and better itself because of a new and energetic competitor.

An enterprising sheet entitled the Harvard Daily News was originated in 1894, and for two years kept the CRIMSON editors worried. Unscrupulous means were used in the hot competition that followed.

The first ten years of the new century were for the CRIMSON a period of constructive conservatism, P. M. Henry '09. President of the CRIMSON during the last half of his Senior year, writes interestingly of the paper at this period. "On the whole we got out a pretty good paper. We were certainly conservative, both as to makeup and contents, but at least we treated the English language with some degree of respect. We were very much afraid of imitating the yellow press. It was not until 1907 that we permitted ourselves a triple head over a news story or a caption of any kind over an Editorial. . . The paper was indispensable because of its notices, but I don't believe it was generally read, except by the editors. . . . .

"A college paper, however, should be judged by comparison with its contemporaries, and as I remember the daily exchanges received from Yale, Princeton, and Cornell, I think we made a respectable showing.

"The paper was published in those years in the basement of the Union and printed by McCarter and Kneeland, whose long suffering patience is gratefully remembered. The candidates did most of the news gathering, and their period of servitude was too long and gruelling. It almost always meant probation for the successful. One of the three Assistant Managing Editors put the paper to bed, the Manager Editor supervised the job, the President wrote the editorials with the assistance of an editorial board, and the 'busy end gathered the ads.' In many respects the management of the CRIMSON has not different to this day, although now there is an Editorial Chairman in charge of the editorial column and the competitions are not as long as they use to be."

In 1912 the work of the business department made itself keenly felt when the size of the paper suddenly increased. In 1911-12, most of the papers, 140 to be exact, were four-page journals, with 54 "sixes" and nine "eights." In 1912-13, however, the number of "fours" decreased to 81 with the "sixes" numbering 104.

With the increase of prestige and financial strength came action on the long talked of new building. The lot on Plympton Street was purchased, and by 1914 plans for the building were completed.

On November 19, 1915, the business and editorial board moved into the new building, and the first paper published at 14 Plympton Street was the Yale Game number of November 20, 1915. A news story that day said: "The ownership of its own building by the University daily sets a precedent for all other colleges and universities throughout the country."

From the peak of its prosperity symbolized by the erection of the new building, the CRIMSON, like the rest of the world, fell upon dark days. After the United States declared war in 1917, the University was turned completely topsyturvy, but somehow the CRIMSON managed to continue publication until the fall of 1918, when the very small number of men returning to college forced the suspension of publication on October 4.

Many of the older graduate editors, however, felt so strongly that the continuing of regular issues should be preserved, in some manner, that on October 24 publication was restored on a weekly basis.

On January 2, 1919, daily publication was resumed, and progress again began to be made. The first important step was the purchase of the Harvard Illustrated Magazine and the election of its editors to the board of the CRIMSON. The purpose of the purchase was to secure for the CRIMSON the necessary mechanical equipment for the publication of a bi-weekly pictorial supplement, and more important, a nucleus of editors who could perform the technical work involved. The first supplement appeared the same spring, but it was not until the following autumn that the pictorial work was organized on the sound footing it has since maintained. So far as is known the CRIMSON was the first college daily to issue such a regular illustrated supplement.

There appeared, too, two departments. "The CRIMSON Playgoer" and "The CRIMSON Bookshelf." Last year special editors were assigned to cover these fields, and the "Bookshelf" which has originally been a column in the paper, became a monthly tabloid supplement.The "Sanctum" at the Crimson Building