Pride and Pragmatism

The University's traditional and understandable passion for anonymity and the internal solution of her problems has long been considered a happy notion by exuberant students who throw their weight around, restrained only by the admonitory clucking of Yard cops. But in playing it cozy by failing to publicize the extent and frequency of the Parkhurst thefts, and recommend workable counter-steps, the University may well have cut off student noses to save itself face.

The University-wide shock at the news that as much as ten thousand dollars' worth of belongings had been stolen was inexcusable. Plainly, the weak, scattered admonitions about "petty" thievery and locking one's door had prepared almost no one for an account of activities which more resembled wholesale looting than casual stealing. In view of the individual student's ignorance of the whole picture, those University authorities who recognized that this was a persistent, going business, could have made a flat official statement of the seriousness of the situation with the suggestion that the serial numbers and labels of all watches, cameras, typewriters and clothing be noted down, locked doors or no. There could have followed a strong recommendation that subsequent thefts be reported not only to the Yard cops, but to the Cambridge police. The way the city police have with these cases involves a check on the lists submitted daily by pawnbrokers of goods passing through their shops. In special cases, the city often details men to check out-of-town lists.

Undoubtedly, the confusion surrounding the thefts was not in any way cleared up by those Harvard men who could volunteer considerable heat about their losses, but not the serial numbers or even the makes of their typewriters or cameras. And, of course, the arrival of federal agents in the late stages to consider the separate question of check thefts, ended all independent investigation by Yard and city police.

But it does remain that prompt publicity and recommendations on thefts whose seriousness was apparent so long ago as February might conceivably have forestalled Parkhurst's streak. Meanwhile, noting down of serial numbers is even now no mere locking of the barn, since no cessation of sneak thievery is contemplated by the Yard cops. Possibly, in view of this fact, authorities enamoured of Harvard's exercise of autonomous control of her affairs, and frightened of the glare headline, will not attempt to win their battle while losing the students' campaign.