Author Indebted to Crime For Basic Writing Training

(Former director of Oversee Division, Office of War Information; Director, Bank of Manhattan Company.)

The great issue when I was a CRIMSON editor in 1915-16, was much the same as it is today. It was whether the United States would accept the burden of responsibility which history had placed upon it. In those days the question was one of "preparedness." We on the CRIMSON were interventionists. We fought for-and got--a Harvard Regiment, which later turned into a part of the ROTC.

And now most of us--with service in two wars under our belts--are still facing the same issue. Only now it is a question of accepting our national responsibility in making sure that these two wars shall not have been fought in vain. My best friend on the CRIMSON was Fuzzy Blaine. One of his sons died on Saipan. If Fuzzy and I were competing today as editorial "heelers," I am sure that we should be vying with each other in trying to make people see that the Marshall Plan must be adopted--without stint or strings--because it's no use building a bridge half-way across a river if you want to get to the other side.

Tools of Trade

You ask what my experience on the CRIMSON has meant to me. Being a writer and occasional public to me. Being a writer and occasional public speaker, I look upon my course with Bliss Perry and my apprenticeship on the CRIMSON as the source from which I first acquired the tools of my trade.

My best wishes on the anniversary. May the CRIMSON go on forever teaching budding authors to think clearly, to write simply and to know for whom they are writing.