Preview

The thick atmosphere of good will that settles on the nation during the holiday season is welcome to everyone but the staffs of newspapers and news-magazines. Their vocation, nourished by crimes, tension, and disputes, has starved during the fortnight when even Moscow radio sent the world its season's greetings, and Senator McCarthy's most controversial act was lighting a Christmas tree. So, with nothing to report, the press has been using the end of the old year as an excuse to speculate on the events of the new. A thoroughgoing job of prediction would be suicidal, for if people knew what was going to happen in advance, news would be redundant. As a result, most predictions, whether slugged "Special 1954 Section" or "What You're In For in '54" are about as specific as an hour essay question in Humanities 3.

To relieve the frustrations caused by this journalistic gambit, we have decided to tell exactly what is going to happen in 1954, even though such divultions might expose us to suit by Newsweek and U.S. News for Breach of the Future.

January: President Eisenhower will ask Congress for extended social security, freer trade, an increase in the debt limit, and continuation of extensive worldwide military commitments. This will be acclaimed as a "bold new policy" and a "dynamic new concept of Presidential leadership" by the anti-Fair Deal press.

February: The cigarette industry will launch a ten billion dollar Truth, Crusade to show that cigarette smoking does not cause lung cancer. Televised "medical dramatizations" will disclose that tars and resins have been painted on the backs of three thousand woman with "no adverse effects." Magazine ads will portray prominent Park Avenue Russian wolfhounds smoking cork tips.

March: The Eliot House Committee will refuse to participate in the All-College Weekend because it feels the plans are "too boisterous. The affair will be renamed the "6/7 College Weekend."

April: Pravda will announce that Vyaslav Molotov has been arrested as an "enemy of the state." Enthusiastic spontaneous demonstrations in the Kiev sector will follow. After a suitable period, Molotov will confess to having been in the pay of the German General Staff since he negotiated the non-aggression pact of 1939. He will admit having suggested the Marshall Plan and NATO to Western diplomats. The Chicago Tribune will comment on the fakery of the purge, right above an editorial in which Truman and Acheson are blamed for China's loss. Radcliffe's "Drumbeats and Song" will turn out to be bigger and better than ever with more cheesecake for Harvard's benefit.

May: What Secretary of Commerce Weeks calls "just a readjustment" in the economy will by this time find four million persons unemployed and farm income off ten percent from December 1953. A man will jump out of a window on Wall St., causing nation-wide panic until it is learned that he was a stunt man for a documentary film about the twenties.

June: The Reunion Class of 1929 will hear classmates John Fox '29 and John K. Fairbank '29 debate in New Lecture Hall, and decide not to withhold the class gift after all. President Pusey will get through the degree-awarding exercises without missing a Dean. The dues list will come down from the Dunster House bulletin board. Tom Lehrer adds a 13 ditty to his list of publicly singable songs; and numbers 106 to 186 to his "small party" selections.

July: The war in Indo-China will wax hotter. Secretary Dulles will announce that the U.S. is ready to fight in Indo-China. On the same day, Secretary Wilson will say that the U.S. will never fight in Indo-China. Considerable confusion will be followed by an announcement by the President that all further statements on Indo-China must come directly from the White House.

August: The Democratic Senatorial primary fight in Massachusetts will find James M. Curley calling Paul A. Dever a "leftist." After Dever wins, the two will make up, and decide that the real "leftist" is Senator Leverett Saltonstall.

September: The Student Council and the CRIMSON will ask Housemasters for one a.m. parietal rules on Saturday nights. After considerable discussion, the Housemasters will announce that they have granted room permissions from midnight to one a.m., but taken away the hours from eight to twelve.

October: Under heavy criticism over the new parietal rules, the Housemasters will reveal that Ivy League parietal rules are not made individually, but based on a handicap system. Handicaps are determined by a committee located in Princeton, New Jersey. Therefore, the shrinkage in hours, the Housemasters will explain, were actually an added handicap put on Harvard men because of their superiority over Yale and Princeton in matters of virility.

November: Either the Democrats or Republicans will gain control of Congress in the elections. If the Republicans, Senator McCarthy will claim the people were showing their appreciation for his work. If the Democrats, Senator McCarthy will say it was because the Communist issue was underplayed. Shortly after the election, he will be nominated for President by the Chicago Tribune, and seconded by the Boston Post. Harvard will shock all the sporting world by going through its football season undefeated and united, and runningup a 60 to 0 score against Yale. Director of Athletics Thomas D. Bolles will then announce that Harvard will consider a bid to play in the Rose Bowl.

December: The holiday season will begin as usual, with Macy's Christmas parade, and a denial of parole to Alger Hiss. Then animositics will melt in the glow of holiday good feeling, and newsmen will be forced to dust off their crystal balls once again.