The Least In The East

Every Saturday some hundred musicians don red ties and coats which they have paid for themselves and head for Soldiers Field to rehearse. There, out of their own pockets, they buy lunch. A half-hour later, each man equipped with his own personal instrument, and reading from sheet-music he has bought, the Harvard Band marches into the Stadium to what is certain to be one of the more resonant cheers of the afternoon.

That cheer is the closest thing to official appreciation the band receives. The HAA recognizes its existence, if not its worth, by providing not quite enough money for one trip each season. What the HAA does not recognize is that, along with the unquestionable additions it makes to the color of a football game, both aural and visual, the band adds hard cash to the gate receipts. Although this point cannot be proven, it also cannot be contested very violently in the face of the fact that the Princeton and Yale Athletic Associations, neither of which can back a band with the reputation or box-office appeal of Harvard's, consider it worth while to treat their horn-players to several trips each season.

At Princeton and Yale, in addition, combinations of Music Department, Athletic Association, and student organization funds buy uniforms, sheet-music; and occasionally rare instruments. The Harvard Band does not want such extensive subsidization. It prefers to retain completely independent status, and to pay its own expenses for all home games. During the current season, the band has managed to do so largely through sales of the Ivy League Album, which have garnered about $3,800; in the future, concerts will help to pay for the organization's non-commercial outings. But the band cannot, and should not, continue to make the cost of trips come out of its own pocket.

Next year there will be three games away. If the HAA does not pay the $7,000 the band will need in order to play at these games, the organization will not offer a repeat on this season's self-reliant excursion to Virginia, which turned into a financial disaster. The HAA may point helplessly at its annual deficit. Such a deficit, however, in a university that almost always contrives to have every individual department round out the year in the black, is largely a matter confined to the Treasurer's bookkeeping. If the HAA were to take a lively interest in the band, it ought not to have much difficulty in persuading University financial authorities to absorb an extra $7,000. In fact, the performance in the Stadium any Saturday should be ample persuasion.