The Press

Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt was president of the Harvard CRIMSON for six months in 1903. Mr. Roosevelt dictated the editorial policy of the college paper and, when he did not write editorials, influenced the choice of topics and their treatment. Fortunately, the CRIMSON still preserves several of the editorial scrap books of that year, and in these are editorial clippings pasted beside scribbled comments by the youthful editor.

F. D. R., as the books are signed, apparently was much interested in influencing undergraduate opinion on everyday topics. Hence, there are editorials written by him on the support of the debating and chess teams; another preaches against the use of tobacco at football games because it annoyed the ladies present; and beside one vehement article on the subject of taking ladies to chapel appears a scribbled indictment of "fussing at Vespers."...

Unlike the present CRIMSON and other modern undergraduate papers, there is virtually no comment on world events. The sole mention of politics occurs in an editorial by Roosevelt about the Political Club. It concludes with a statement interesting in the light of the writer's subsequent career. "There must be many among us who, whether or not of a voting ago, would be more than glad to gain knowledge by actual experience of the intricacies of Feredal, State and municipal politics."...

Because of the pride it takes in its famous editor, the CRIMSON has campaigned all fall for the Democratic cause. Professors are quoted daily as favoring the election of Roosevelt, and whenever some one advocates President Hoover his interview is relegated to a back page. The only time Mr. Hoover has "made the front page" his picture was surmounted by the heading, "Has Little Support."

The other Harvard publication, the Lampoon, which has carried on a friendly battle with the CRIMSON for years, has, as a result, decided to go Republican. Most of the editors were Republican anyway, and the few Democrats agreed that for a CRIMSON man to become President would be terrible and an event that transcends party politics. And so the Lampoon is uniformly and whimsically for the G.O.P. --New York Evening Post.

(Ed. Note:--During the past election the CRIMSON has expressed no partisan views on its editorial page. Any appearance of bias in the location or treatment of news stories was inadvertent.)