SCHINE AT HARVARD--MUCKRAKING?

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

It is a sad sign of the times when an alumnus of this College, be he David Schine or Beelzebub, is so muck-raked in the CRIMSON as to his private life and habits while at College. For the author of the article to go around questioning Schine's tradesmen, janitors, roommates and even his Radcliffe girl-friends, is to show that he is training himself for work not unlike the public life of Mr. Schine himself.

The author of the article should care for his own principles more and his indignation less. Did it not occur to you what a shameful act this article was? This is a sad precedent when we amongst ourselves stoop to such irrelevant and contemptible weapons. The essence of freedom is privacy. America will never be secure in her freedom while liberals fight back with the same weapons with which McCarthy apparently corrupts us all. The particular injustices of McCarthy are alarming (though America is pretty used to such), but far less so than his general method of politics that abolishes all distinction between private and public life and responsibility--a method that the author of your article appears to share with him sincerely. Bernard Crick,   Teaching Fellow in Government.

Mr. Crick is correct when he says that the right of privacy is an essential part of freedom. I cherish this freedom as greatly as he and would defend as staunchly as he the right of privacy for a private individual. But the only thing private about G. David Schine is his rank in the Army. It was not I who chose to make Mr. Schine a public figure; I would have much preferred to have seen him remain in private life as the president of a hotel chain. But he is now much more, and it was Schine himself who purposely decided to become a public figure.

By this decision he forfeited along with all other public figures his right to a publicity-free private life. It is no longer private because it has great relevancy to his public life which, unfortunately, is now of grave concern to the nation. Whatever is of concern to the nation is of concern to the nation's press.

My purpose in writing this article was not, as Mr. Crick suggests, to "muckrake." It was to place in some perspective Mr. Schine's role in the present squabble in Washington. I tried to show that his life at Harvard foreshadowed the present controversy because it is very much part of his personality, as displayed here, to feel that special privileges are due him. I do not consider this "irrelevant."

Lastly, I would dispute Mr. Crick's apparent assumption that the college career of a Harvard alumnus should not be painted unfavorably in the CRIMSON. This he seems to suggest is some sort of disloyalty to Harvard. Here he displays a misunderstanding of the freedom and diversity which underlie this university. Harvard takes no responsibility either for what its students do with themselves here or what they become later. It is therefore no less befitting for the university paper to run an article on Mr. Schine's life here than it was for it to publish one on FDR's student days. I assume Mr. Crick would have no objections to the latter, but does he seriously maintain that it is permissible to run a favorable but not an unfavorable article? Such a policy would be a false show of loyalty to the university.   J. A. L.