Raccoon Coats, Sousa's Band Help Kick Off Class of '29 Freshman Year

When 384 members of the Class of 1929 registered for the fall term of 1925 they found Harvard like America was energetically building in an era of prosperity; three new dormitories in the Yard had been completed the spring before and a fourth--Strauss--was just off the drafting board. The walls of McKinlock were already standing beside the Charles, plans for Memorial Church were being drawn up, and the basement was laid for the new Fogg Museum.

Square merchants advertised raccoon coast for $350 and Harold Lloyd was frolicking in "The Freshman" a comedy about college and football life which few of the new class took very seriously. More important things lay in Harvard Stadium where the revised football team was expected to do great things.

These freshmen were honestly unconcerned about the war debt problems of France or the Locarno treaty and only occasionally did the world court issue make a determined appearance in their lives. As the fall term opened Cal Coolidge was well on his way to mediocrity while Red Grange and Paul Whiteman's jazz caught the undergraduates' enthusiasm.

Hardly had the Shenandoah dirigible crashed than '29 unbuttoned its collar in Hemenyway gym to register for its first term. Most found the special freshman welcoming day a big help in getting their bearings. As they wrote weeks later in their first assignment for English A, in a theme entitled "My Reactions--Favorable and Unfavorable--to My Reception at Harvard" that extra day without the upperclassman gave the class its first feeling of unity.

A promising football player commented that he missed the fan-fare he had expected on arrival and felt neglected until practice on Monday. While a prosaic southerner who expected to be beaten and scalped in the high tradition of southern universities found he could go to his room unmolested. And an independent scholar noted the air of partial aloofness, "a considerable and soothing reserve, a refreshing forbearance from prying into the affairs of others."

Expenses $900

He also wrote of "the somewhat warped impression of the University's activities which we receive at the freshman meeting--that football and literary work are the chief extra-curricular interests of the students; the annoyance of wandering in perilous search of cafeteria food during the four days between our required arrival and the opening of the freshman dining halls; the incompetence of the student advisory system which does not send our counsellors to interview us until we have already passed the uncertain stage of finding our way about in the bewilderment of our new life."

Aside from these few discomforts the '29ers landed on a college well trained to handle them. Dean Whitney '17 had just enlisted a group of recently-graduated proctors and had picked Elliott Perkins '23 as his first assistant dean. The CRIMSON added to their advice with its first "Confidential Guide to Freshman Courses," which covered about 40 courses normally open to the newcomers. The freshmen in financial trouble turned to Walter Daly '14 who announced average expenses would run between $900 and $1,200. All told, Harvard in the fall of 1925 greeted its new babes with open arms and rapidly installed them in the halls of Gore, Standish, George Smith, James Smith, Persis Smith, Little and Shepard.

John Philip Sousa's famous band was in Sanders during the second week of college and set merrily about creating the enthusiastic air which filled the Yard and Soldiers Field for the next nine months.

Over 175 candidates turned out on Monday afternoon for Coach Cambells first practice. By the Andover game the squad had been pruned to three teams and a number of stars began to twinkle ever so faintly: French (later captain), Putnam, Cunningham, and McGehee in the backfield; O Connell, Harrison, Wolfe, Churchill, Parkinson, Robinson, and Prior from end to end.

The score of that opener was 0-0 in a game a little open football. By the Yale battle two months later the team had crushed every opponent and the once optimistic supporters of the varsity eleven had turned to the freshmen as the leading lights of future Harvard football.

With all due respect to the above contingent, one must remind The Class of three singularly miserable individuals--Devinna, Garbose, and Spibtarn--who opened college in Stillman Infirmary. Poor Devinna: he was there until Oct. 28.

The healthy were jousting with their classmates in an opening day football rally during which the freshmen gathered at the Smith Hall quadrangle and marched en masse to the Stadium for the Rensselear Polytechnic game. This freshman cheering was a fixture for the next two games, characterizing the intense feeling which football stirred up in the undergraduates.

Controversy reached a high point with the column of W. O. McGeehan in the Boston Globe. He wrote to the effect that given a chance the graduates and undergraduates of Harvard would gladly trade President Lowell, President Emeritus Eliot, and three heads of departments for a good running backfield and no questions asked.

The CRIMSON, which felt it was in close contact with the situation, replied that Harvard "wouldn't exchange one item of its academic prestige for the best All-American football team in history and a herd of newspaper propagandists in the bargain." Even during the fall of 1925 the opinion was still widely held around Cambridge that Stadium was an accessory of the College and not the College of the Stadium.

Meanwhile in Boston, before the giant Dartmouth game, a bellhop at the Big Green dance was overheard to say that Dartmouth students were more generous and better dancers than the Harvards, though the latter showed greater signs of sobriety than the invaders from Hanover. The Indians crushed Harvard on the gridiron the next afternoon.

Such then were the signs of the 1925-fall; new building, football squabbles, and a vague preoccupation with international problems as voiced by President Lowell's insistence on the freetrade, and the much-publicized visit of the Oxford debating team to discuss the role of socialism.

In the dress department, most of the Class of 1929 wore hats; their absence was considered next to undress. Most bought their clothes in town either at Jordan Marsh or Filene's, which prided itself on offering stylish $50 tuxedos with all the trimmings.

Lost Yale Game

Scholastically, the Class slowly came into its own with the announcement that 81 had passed the entrance examinations with high honors and that the Harvard Club of Boston had awarded scholarships to W. C. Goodwin, David Guarnaccia, W. G. Hazard, J. F. Ryan, and Marshall Schalk.

And politically, the Class savored the campaigning slogans of thirty-five who aimed for high office on the Dormitory Committee. On November 11, a football dominated slate of 12 were elected: B. H. Beal, E. T. Putnam, James Lawrence, E. W. Sexton, C. M. Churchill, S. G. Hardy, T. G. Moore, A. E. French, R. H. O'Connell, G. H, Norris, F. W. Farnsworth, and C. B. Carnegie.

Immediately they rolled the class into high gear for the coming game against the blue-shirts of Yale: a soccer game, a special band rounded up by inter-dorm football manager B. G. Griscom, and a dance. Great was the disappointment when the Yalies showed under the optimistic freshman contingent 34 to 0 before 10,000 spectators.

As the football season vanished after the varsity held favored Yale to a scoreless deadlock, three football coaches announced their resignations--for business and personal reasons--and the Corporation created a Department of Athletics under a Director of Athletics who was given full faculty standing.

The Class turned indoors to Boston theatres and night clubs with the winter season at hand: "Candida" came to town along with "The Miracle," which was hailed as the apogee of dramatic art, and "Abies Iris Rose" at the Castel Square Theatre, one of the eleven legitimate theatres in town. And the Cantagridgians were delighted with the news that a movie theatre would be constructed in the Square by the fall of 1926.

Following exam period the major piece of news was the University's ruling that seniors in good standing would be allowed unlimited cuts. The leniency of this decision evoked praise from the undergraduates at Harvard and nearly every college along the East Coast.

This liberal move was only slightly countered by the barely publicized arrest of two bootleggers caught selling their prohibited wares to seniors in the Yard. The Cambridge police chief commented that he was at last getting the situation under control and expected momentary arrests of other sellers.

Track Coach E, L. Farrell, enticing freshmen to come out for the university team, had the following encouragement: "It has been conclusively shown that two out of every five freshmen who continue their track work for four years make their letter in the end, and one of ten is a star. Any freshman who follows instructions for a week will be kept on the squad." He got a large turn-out.

French President

In the arena, a crack hockey team of Crosby, Putnam, Jackson, Traynor, and Tudor racked up victory on victory over the school boys, beating St, Marks and Milton. In the Milton game, won 3-0 by the freshmen, two Cunningham brothers faced each other across the ice. John Tudor, former St. Markser, was elected Captain.

And down on Bow St. tempers were short following the CRIMSON's scorching review of the first winter issue. Commented the reviewer:" "It would seem that the lean years have arrived in purlieus of Mount Auburn and Plympton Streets, for seldom have we previously been favored with such a monumental display of gratuitous imbecility, such wholesome vulgarity of the common or garden variety, or such lamentable paucity of wit and artistry as is represented by this issue."

The leaders of 1929 broke into the fore during the last week in February with the election of Class Officers. Arthur Eugene French, Jr. of Winchester was chosen president; Kenneth Douglas Robinson of Howlitt, N. Y., vice-president; and Henry Greene Crosby of West Newton, secretary and treasurer. As if to celebrate the returns, the freshman hockey team rolled over Yale, 10 to 4, for the team's tenth consecutive victory and its third in a row over the Eli.

One day later, the Corporation announced the appointment of William J. Bingham '16 as director of athletics, and the CRIMSON clapped its bands at what it hoped would be closer relations between the faculty and the coaches.

And two weeks later Bingham broke the news of the appointment of Arnold Horween '21 as head football coach for the fall of 1926.

During much of the spring term the debating team kept up the University's interest in current national and international problems, ranging at will over the League of Nations, H. L. Mencken, and the lack of need for education. It usually wrangled before packed houses.

The international scene to the contrary, the major issue before the Class off 1929 came with the Business School's offer of 303 rooms for the coming year. After consulting with the Freshman Executive Committee, the choice was put in the form of a referendum before the entire class. It was met with mixed reception and by graduation there were many future sophomores who preferred to sleep "on the town" rather than in the newly constructed Business Schools buildings.

The freshmen burst upon the seniors having their pictures taken with a barrage of eggs, pennies, and tomatoes during the first week in May, and the class officials, including Albert Churchill, head of the Red Book Committee, John Tudor, Jubilee Chairman, Winslow Carlton, head of finance, Edward Sexton, Smoker Chairman, and Charles McKein, Entertainment Chairman, were unable to restore order.

During the same month the Pudding celebrated its 80th year with a show called '"76," an historical satire hailed as the best show since the war, the Revolutionary War, that in. In town, Catherine Cornell was starring in "The Green Hat" and Ben Hur showed before packed houses.

The Wets and Drys

Probably the two most unique questions before the College in the spring of 1926 came from a Student Council report which recommended the division of the College into smaller colleges like those of Oxford and Cambridge and a College poll on the prohibition issue. On the College question, the undergraduates were barely opposed and the faculty barely in favor, while the voting ran heavily against continuing the present prohibition laws.

By the middle of May the leading scholars of the class were Adams Blondis, Gierasch, Loud Marfield, Norris, Rittenband, Sardomire, and Seidel, all of whom placed in Group I for mid-year grades. And the captains for spring sports were O'Connell of track, Cole of 150 pound crew, Shapiro of lacrosse, and Prior of an eminently successful baseball team.

And by June the only major news item was the resignation of varsity crew coach E. A. Stevens because of lack of cooperation on the part of the crew. A monster rally of 500 saw the oarsmen off to Red Top and three weeks of grinding before the Yale race. And a week later the College was surprised by the suspension of six members of the Eli freshman crew for violating the honor system at Red Top.

Comencement Week passed uneventfully with the awarding of 1625 degrees and an honorary to Alfred North Whitehead, "a philosopher generous and kind, whose thought pierces deeper than others look." And the Class of 1929 ended its first year on the Charles much less dramatically than when it began.

When '29 returned three months later, Cambridge alternated between mourning the death of President-Emeritus Eliot during the summer and cheering over Gene Tunney's victory over former heavy weight Jack Dempsey. Al Jolson in "Big Bay" was ht star of the hour and thousands of alumni were looking over the shoulder of Arnold Horween as he schooled his first football team.

A selected few found berths in the Business School, while the majority haunted the boarding houses of Cambridge for lodging. Most were concerned with the degenerate eating habits of the College. The CRIMSON offered a $25 prize for the best essay on solving the eating problem and published columns of statistics on the number of men who lunched on the Square.

Square Eateries

President Lowell was moved to write that "the students to have forgotten that gregarious animals and civilized feed together, and that meals have a social as well as nutritive value." Since the closing of Memorial Hall a year and a half before, more than 3000 animals were cramming down their food at self-service cafes and the president and officials of the University felt the situation needed a remedy.

A. H. Harlow distinguished himself with their place prize of $10 in the essay contest. His proposal was for a central dining hall in the shape of a St. Andrews cross, to be located at the corner of Holyoke and Mr. Auburn streets, Several weeks after the publication of his essay President Lowell announced that $100,000 had been allocated for the construction of such a central hall.

Though a majority of the Class may have felt themselves the unhappy victims of the traditional sophomore slump, Messrs. French, Putnam, and Robinson distinguished themselves under Horween's guidance. French made a number to touchdowns which were well received, and Putnam's signal calling was a key to the team's early season wins over Tufts and Dartmouth.

Undoubtedly the high point of the football dominated fall came with a headline on a fake CRIMSON to the effect that Princeton football coach Roper had died during the game with Harvard. This fraud issue greeted the 54,000 fans packed into the Stadium after the Tiger had convincingly beaten Harvard. The upshot of the affair was that Princeton formally, and with the wounded pride which comes with unprovoked criticism, severed athletic connections with Harvard.

Princeton Fracas

Thousands of loyal sons of Nassau and Cambridge treated the Lampoon-written article defaming Princeton as a case of juvenile humor, but not so the Princeton administration, which felt the issue was the culmination of a series of Harvard slurs on its good name. The incident led into a string of articles appearing in national magazines which dragged "dirty football" and Signet rings onto the gridiron for a public airing which did little good, and only intensified already heated feeling on the place of the football giant in undergraduate life.

On the same day that Princeton announced its severance, Old Gold publicized the winning slogan for its now, cooler cigarette: "Such Miles of Smiles This Morning." And an advertisement for a 1923 Lexington Special offered the snappy touring car for $175 down with the balance of $250 payable in 12 months.

A few weeks later the CRIMSON published its Memorial Issue to the late President Eliot, and two days after that President Lowell celebrated his 70th birthday. Vigorous and forthright, he published his report on athletics in the University with his belief that everyone in the College should participate to the maximum of his capacity. "Athletics for All" was the matte.

During the remainder of the fall and winter term, the sophomore class was busily assimilating itself with the upper three classes as Club elections came and went and a new roster of class officers took command: John Tudor as president, Forrester Andrew Clark as vice president, and James Lawrence as secretary-treasurer.

Despite the football fracas, the College was not always the focus of attention. For Dean Pound of the Law School announced that $1,250,000 was being put into enlarging Langdell Hall and that the School was engaged in a campaign for $5 million. Construction on two medical buildings was under way, a new chemical laboratory was going up, a baseball cage was being built, and Fogg Museum was nearly ready for occupancy, all this in addition to talk about a new indoor athletic building. Indeed, the year saw Harvard booming with American, and were it not for financial limitations, she might no6FOGG MUSEUM, completed in 1926, was one of six new buildings erected during other four years of '29.