MacLeish Tells '43 to Look Beyond War; 899 Freshmen Run Memorial Hall Gantlet

"These of you who are alive five, seven, or ten years from now will have a task of reconstruction, the labor of creating a world in which men can live decently together," Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress, told nearly 1000 Freshmen who jammed the main dining room in the Union last night.

Harvard's three hundred and first Freshman class had thronged to the Union for their annual reception and to be officially welcomed to Harvard by President Conant and other University leaders.

Clearly discernible amid the traditional welter of words of advice and humorous anecdotes were two factors not present in recent years: the President's tendency to limit his remarks to introducing the other speakers, and the preoccupation of almost all the speakers with the war in Europe.

Conant to Advise '43 Later

President Conant told the Yardlings that "when you have shaken down and passed the two hazards of football season and November Hour examinations, I will return to give you some advice about Harvard and the University's policies in an off-the-record speech." He will also speak in Appleton Chapel Tuesday morning on world affairs.

The war note was first sounded by Willard Learoyd Sperry, Dean of the Divinity School and Chairman of the Board of Preachers, when he said, "We are living in one of the overcast days of the world."

But it was Archibald MacLeish, who graduated from the Law School in 1919 and served as Curator of the Nieman Collection of Journalism last year, who hammered home war's significance to the newest generation of college students.

'18 Prototype of '43

"Your class has a prototype, the class of 1918," he told the Freshmen. "That generation, my generation, believed that the future was the war and there was no future after the war."

"Now," he continued, "we do not see the war as a finality. The last war was not an end but a beginning. It was not a sea at the end of time. You know what has to be done now will still have to be done after the war; the war will not relieve you of the responsibility of doing it.

"It is not enough to beat Hitlerism; we must beat the conditions from which Hitlerism sprang.

"My generation prepared itself to die if it had to. Many of us did," he went on, urging the present generation to look ahead to the monumental task of reconstructing a war-shattered world.

'43 Sings

When the slight poet who himself fought in the World War had finished speaking, the class of '43 rose to its feet and uncertainly sang the first stanza of "Fair Harvard."

Richard M. Gummere, Chairman of the Committee on Admissions, stressed the fact that Harvard is "not an aloof and cold place," but one where "we're all interested in you." He urged Freshmen to meet as many of their classmates as possible.