Harvard Revolution

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be with-held.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

If what I read in the German papers is true, there is an old-fashioned set-to going on at Harvard--and in, a grand manner, as it were, over the offer of Dr. Hanfstaengl. I wish I could be there to watch the verbal pyrotechnics, but since I can't, I'll take no sides. But here's an article from the "Volkischer Beobachter"--Munich edition of October 10--which I thought might interest you. The English is obviously mine, but I assure you it came from very good German.

Harvard Students Protest Against the Inimical Stand of the Overseers to Germany

"The ready offer of the Chief of Press for foreign affairs of the NSDAP, Dr. Hanfstaengl, who as is known, has proffered a stipendium through Harvard University to a student for one year of study in Germany at the University of Munich, and whose stipendium has been declined by the Overseers of Harvard in a manner offensive not only to Dr. Hanfstaengl, but also to the whole German system of higher learning, has raised a storm of anger in the student body of Harvard. (Here is quoted the CRIMSON editorial of October 4).

The present fight which has broken out between the Harvard student body and the University authorities of the oldest college in America (1636) makes evident for the first time the cleft between the post-war student youth and the old-fashioned Wilsonian group of professors. An incident such as this might well be the first move in an intellectual fermentation within the academic upper classes of conservative New England.

The disagreement at Harvard has still another side, however; that is, namely, that Harvard, like all other American universities, is financially supported and furthered not by the state, but by its student body and older men. So with this fact in mind, the above mentioned protest of the students against the Overseers must gain greatly in inner striking power.

"Thus various Harvard instructors have already aligned themselves on the side of Dr. Hanfstaengl. In their telegrams of sympathy to him they demand for young American students the right to study freely in a land of such great scientific and cultural traditions as Germany and to be allowed to widen their scope in this way. Moreover, the Harvard Club of Berlin--which is a union of former Harvard students--will busy itself next Friday with this affair.

"The wholly inconsistent attitude of the Harvard board of authority, which believed it must refuse the stipendium on account of the alleged Kulturbarbarel of New Germany, is easily grasped on the single fact that the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Harvard two months ago received and accepted the honorary doctor's degree of the University of Berlin. Charles Arensberg '34.