"Painful and Silly Betrayal of Harvard's Best Ideals," Is Graduate's Condemnation of Drinking in Harvard Clubs

"An exhibition painful and silly, a betrayal of Harvards best ideals" is the light in which Mr. J. R. Hayes '89 declares should be regarded the practice of serving liquor openly at Harvard club dinners.

Mr. Hayes, who is librarian of Swarthmore College, as well as author and teacher, in a letter to the CRIMSON condemns a specific instance as much as the general practice.

"No doubt some Harvard men are still addicted to drinking in their homes," he says. "But when a Harvard Club Dinner Committee intimates that drinks will be served at its annual dinner, what are serious alumni to think of so backward a step?

"Alumni near Philadelphia have been recently favored with a series of dinner notices, illustrated with cartoons of very jolly youths in various attitudes, the text suggesting that liquor will not be notably absent from the dinner.

"The final picture of the series shows 'two graduates' carefully and gleefully carrying a very heavy and doubtless fragrant suitcase 'en route to the Harvard Club Dinner' at the Racquet Club, Philadelphia, February 27.

"All this is of course vastly funny and a splendid piece of law-defiance--in the eyes of certain graduates. To others of our alumni the exhibition can seem only painful and silly, a betrayal of Harvard's best ideals.

"Perhaps these notices are but a hoax; perhaps no liquor will be served. But the thing suggests what I had hoped was a vanishing evil,--a lot of maudlin, loud-voiced and excited 'good fellers,' flushed and silly and unmanly, who next day will feel very much ashamed.

"It is, not easy to speak thus plainly: but in these critical days what can thoughtful Harvard men do to discourage such an incident?"