Harvard Men Arrested at Theatre Riot in 1907 "Brown at Harvard" Show

On April 9, 1907, the words, "Arrest Six Harvard Men at Theatre Riot" appeared as the feature headlines on the front page of the Boston Herald. Similar caption came out in the Advertiser and the other morning papers. The occasion for this riot which caused so much disturbance and comment, both in the University and around Boston, was the opening performance at the Majestic Theatre on Monday night, April 8, 1907, of the play "Brown at Harvard," which the Dramatic Club has recently chosen for its spring production.

Enjoyed Long Runs Elsewhere

Before its arrival in Boston the play had enjoyed a run of 18 months in New Yorw, Chicago, New Haven, Princeton, and other cities, where it had met with great success, and been taken in all seriousness as a true representation of Harvard life. After this lengthy try-out in strange lands it had finally come back to its native setting and birthplace. For, written by a Radcliffe graduate, Mrs. Ryder Young, about Harvard students in their native haunts, it was a distinctly Greater Boston production. To make the atmosphere of the opening night entirely consistent with the tenor of the play, the advance manager had conceived the idea of a Harvard night, and had sent out invitations to Harvard men to occupy the boxes on both sides of the stage. This hospitality on the part of the manager was, according to the Boston Herald, "well meant but positively disastrous." Harvard students were in no mood to give the play a favorable reception. They had heard altogether too much about the seriousness with which its exaggerated representations of many of the worst and most ridiculous sides of college life had been taken as an accurate portrayal of Harvard students and the life they led. They felt too much pride in the traditions and honor of the University to let such a caricature of it pass without a vigorous protest. Unfortunately the method they chose did little to add to that honor which was so dear to them.

Paly Became Howling Failure

The Herald gives the story of that first night riot from the point of view of indignant Boston as follows: "This fatal mistake turned the play into a howling failure. The Harvard men came, in numbers large enough to fill the boxes on each side of the stage. . . . They were mostly 'cubs' of the crazily merry type of students out for a lark and determined to guy everybody with in jostling and hearing distance.

"The raising of the curtain was the signal for more noise from the young bloods who represented Harvard University. A chorus of yells greeted the performers, and for some minutes nothing could be heard above the din.

"The Harvard men held the ear of the public with a series of exclamations of which 'Rotten, rotten!' and 'Oh. my!' were the most sane and most frequent. The audience looked aghast, the players stumbled through their speeches, but the University boys kept on.

Yells and Cat-Calls Break Up Play

"Then Woodruff came out, and his letter 'H' acted upon the young academicians like a red rag upon a bull. Again yells, cat-calls exclamations, expletives, snatches of derisive song, more 'Rottens' and 'Oh, my's' all of it continuing for 15 minutes uninterruntelly.

"For at least five of those 15 minutes Harvard' scotched the performance and practically put the performers out of action."

The story goes on say the rioters braced up at this point and it seemed as though the play might go on when, "out from the boxes suddenly flew a volley of lemons. The players in danger ducked opportunely and the missals either flattened themselves against the wings or rolled harmlessly alone the floor of the stage.

"Volley firing presently skirmish firing with lemous and cases individually aimed without much regard to joint effect.

"The precautions had meanwhile been taken to keep up the supply of ammunition in the presence of the enemy. From time to time orderlies made hurried journovs to the street returning on each occasion with fresh missles from the carts of convenient fruit venders.

"Fast and furious then grew the fun inside. The boxes continued to 'put it' to the players in the form of lemons. The serious parts were hampered by the unpicturesque necessity of ducking; the sentimental parts were derided and almost laughed out of countenance.

"Nor were the women players spared. At times the students would pretend to weep in sheer mockery; occasionally the sounds of kissing would break in upon some tender situation and completely spoil its effect. And between successive flights of lemons came ever and anon the Harvard yells of 'Rotten,' 'Oh, my,' and 'Cut it out.'

Coins Added to Missiles

"In act two, one 'Gerald Thom' a youth who is having his expenses paid through college by some unknown benefactor and who has not sufficient money to mingle with the more aristocratic students, was received with special disfavor. Coins were added to the missles thrown and jingled on the stage to the intense delight of the student body present.

"Act four was comparatively free of fruit throwing. The supply had been greatly diminished, and several of the arrested students gave up large supplies at the station house.

"A grand whoop greeted the final curtain, and among the crowd which poured out there were many who were loud in their denunciation of the attitude of the students."

Cast Given Truce on Second Night

The next evening when the initial curtain went up the presidents of the four Harvard classes appeared on the stage apology for the demonstration of the previous evening. It also appears that the actors enjoyed a peaceful evening as a reward for their arduous labors of the opening performance. That the indignation of Boston people had not yet been appeased is brought out in a Herald editorial of April 10.

"The disgraceful disturbance at the Majestic Theatre on Monday night by a company of Harvard students deserved a more adequate punishment than the fines imposed upon the half-dozen young rowdies who were arrested. When a student conducts himself like a 'mucker' he should be treated as such. No band of hoodlums in this city ever behaved in so outrageous a manner in any place of public amusement as did these 'young gentlemen' of Harvard on this occasion."

The Transcript of April 9, in its play review columns treated the case in a light more favorable to the Harvard rloters. It says in part:

Transcript Defends Students

"The truth is that, under all the excesses of youthful turbulence on itself, there was a wholesome and reasonable protest against a play that so far as it professes to represent life at Harvard College, in either the manners and customs or the large standards of conduct and character of the students there is preposterous to a comical grotesquesness. There are, none the less, enough to believe anything and everything, however grotesque and preposterous of Harvard College. By all accounts they have taken 'Brown at Harvard' as a rather unflattering picture of life there and not as the lively entertainment for young and old it was intended to be.

"It is well, however, not to take the protesting disturbances any more seriously than the play itself.