CROONER BALKED IN TRY FOR UNIVERSITY BALLADS

"Fair Harvard" and the University football songs barely escaped "popularization" this year at the bands of the Yale-University of Maine crooner, Rudy Vallee, it was learned yesterday.

Following the plugging which made the "Stein Song" infamous, the Broadway orchestra leader sought to secure the rights for several of the University's songs, but was denied them. Harvard evidently preferred playing its own music to the nation-wide publicity which would have been afforded by a Connecticut Yankee performance. The outcome of the matter was, however, an official decision to keep the classic strains of "Gridiron King" and "Up the Street" for the less sensational programs of the University Band.