'Singeasy'; It's Absolute Nadir Of Harvard College Iniquity

The Chicago Dally News

(Mr. Fisher is real estate editor of this issue because he covers more ground than any other Nieman.)

An uneasy sentry stood in the rain outside Jim's, his eyes furtively probing the shadows of the street. Behind him the muffed sound of 200 raucous voices singing "Ten Thousand Men" beat against the plate glass front.

The sentry stiffened, then slipped quickly inside. He shouted to the singers: "Coppers!"

The song hushed in a gulp. A moment later Cambridge police were confronted with only the comparative quiet of the joke box, the television, and 200 lips slurping cool beer.

The city ordinance banning group singing in taverns is a surviving bit of Puritana among the laws designed to maintain the peace and quiet of Cambridge. It has produced the Harvard "singeasy," first-cousin of the "speakeasy," and an institution unique on the campuses of America.

Men who have been reared in the atmosphere of the "singeasy" find the free song of such places at Yale's Morey's and Dartmouth's Rathskeller strange and unnatural. Most distrust reports of such freedom. Others consider it generally repugnant.

Quotes from Jim

In this period of cultural conformity, such persons have even questioned the propriety of the "singeasy" itself.

Certainly, they would agree, if the "singeasy" ever truly reached the fanciful state pictured above, better days are now at hand. Nothing so vigorous now exists.

This can be credited to the dogged police enforcement of the anti-sing law and to people like Jim Cronin, who takes his civic responsibilities seriously.

"The boys used to give us plenty of trouble," said Jim, prominent "singeasy" operator who has been wetting Harvard throats for 32 years. "We'd hush 'em up in one booth only to have 'em burst out in another.

"I used to have nightmares that the cops would lift my license.

"But things are better now," he continued. "They get a little out of hand on the Yale weekend, but nothing really bad. Times are more serious and the boys aren't so rebellious.

"I think song is just about stamped out at Harvard."