Cambridge's Only Breakfast Table Daily

RESTING peacefully in a tattered red book which lies in reverence and dust somewhere high up in the stacks of Widener are ten wistful and somewhat historical little words: "We earnestly request contributions from all members of the University."

This hopeful appeal for aid is buried in a mass of editorial trivia in Volume 1, Number 1 of an upstart literary magazine which first made its appearance in January, 1873, sporting the title of Magenta.

The ten original editors could not have known that their brainchild was destined to survive with incredible stamina an epidemic of wars, fierce competition, and depression, and to emerge as today's thriving enterprise which calls itself the Harvard CRIMSON.

If anything indications were that the biweekly 16-page collection of tid-bits and fiction would soon be a nostalgic memento, hung on the walls of its first home, a journalistically uninspiring room in Stoughton Hall. Five previous publications since 1810 had folded, and the Magenta began under the inauspicious attitude of the Dean of the College who "expressed strong disapproval" of the venture.

But the paper ignored the Dean, managed to survive, and when the College official changed its color in 1875, the Magenta followed suit and became the CRIMSON.

The early '80's were hard years financially for the young paper, and matters were not helped by the existence of other struggling journals. In addition to the Advocate, which by 1879 was a weekly like the CRIMSON, the first Harvard daily appeared in that year. The Echo was a rather inept production, and Mother Advocate summed that matter up when it stated: "It is hard to say which has been most acceptable to the Echo's readers, the vulgarity of its first year, in insipidity of its second, or the negligence of its third."

THE hour was ripe for another daily, and in 1882 the first issues of a vigorous new paper, the Harvard Journal, appeared. The CRIMSON and the Journal took an early liking to each other, and in 1883 the two merged as the Herald-Crimson, then later the Daily Crimson, and finally in 1891, simply the CRIMSON.

Sports news played a very large part in the CRIMSON of the Gay '90's. Detailed accounts of the daily football practice were invariably given top billing, and minor jugglings in the JV crew boatings rated detailed accounts. There was a lot of talk, even in the paper, about over-emphasis of athletics, but even so, the CRIMSON published a series in 1893 giving a recapitulation of Harvard's encounter with Yale in every major sport for the past five years.

Beginning in the early '90's, however, the social club aspects of the '80's, were giving way to a more serious concern with journalism.

Not that the editors entirely renounced their pleasant vices. The paper's office moved around a good bit in those days and wherever it went there was a sanctum, the center of exuberant conviviality. Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled years later the occasion of the transfer of quarters to the Union in 1891: "There was much fear that the new quarters would take away the esprit de corps which had grown up in the old sanctum, and also that no punch night could be held in the Union. Both fears have proved to be groundless."

But if good times remained, they co-existed with serious journalism. In the '90's the custom of publishing extras after football games was born. The first experiment was in 1892 on the day of the Harvard-Princeton baseball game. The newsboys were in the Square with complete results of the contest just four minutes and fifty-four seconds after the game.

The news columns and editorials of the middle years of the first decade of the new century displayed a curious mixture of the bromidic and the constructive. While there were many articles on such subjects as "Fresh Air in Classrooms," "Singing at the Games" and so on, there was a distinct trend to more valuable facts and opinions. The Crime took up the issue of brutality in football games, was responsible for the founding of the Student Council, and began an extensive series on educational policy.

Beginning with President Lowell's active administration in 1909, the CRIMSON began to dig itself out of several ruts. Action pictures began to appear, and the typographical format was livened up. Editorials ceased to plod along, and news copy was generally sharper.

But if editors had some reason to be satisfied with their product, they were not happy with their environment. By 1914 there was more than a little agitation for a private CRIMSON building. Undergraduate interest and graduate financing combined on the project project, and in 1915 the CRIMSON ceased its nomadic existence and settled down at 14 Plympton Street, never to unsettle again.

After Christmas vacation in 1918, the paper was once again on a daily schedule, and the CRIMSON soon began to regain former health. In 1919, the paper bought the 20 year-old Harvard Illustrated, a pictorial journel and thenceforth published a bi- weekly photographic supplement. The next year, the progressive board also purchased a new press which made the addition of a fifth coulmn of news possible.

The larger paper was indicative, what the Crime lacked in quality, it up quantity. On the day of the Yale game in 1921, for instance, editors spewed forth a 16 page morning edition, a 40-page pictorial supplement, a four-page post-game extra, and 45,000 song programs, which is a world's record for something or other.

THE 1923 staff woke up one morning- it had ever gone to bed--to find that paper had survived for fifty years and peared inordinately healthy. The New York Evening Post called the Crime "a fine and high-grade expression of the best student sentiment," while Mother Advocate, thinking back to the days when the paper was an upstart literary magazine, observed, "If child is father to the man, the two are often strangely dissimilar."

The CRIMSON entered its second half- century on a wave of activity and change that was sweeping the whole College. The changes and advances were clearly mirrored in the paper's pages; each year of '20 brought forth new and forthright editor's viewpoints, while news coverage and photography advanced steadily in scope and volume.

By 1925, the CRIMSON's relations with the Faculty had become overly cordial, and the paper showed signs of becoming a sort of independent house-organ. To remedy situation, the Confidential Guide To Freshmen Courses was born, which left some professors less than enthusiastic about freedom of the collegiate press.

Linotyping in the '20's was under the capable mismanagement of Dick Dyer, and credit goes to him for the worst "pruf haks" (proof reading errors) of the decade. On one ocassion Dyer, offended by the euphonics of Agmemnon's name, proceeded to altar it to "Agoddammit."

More seriously, the CRIMSON was for the first time overtly criticizing a University administration. The University's anti- theatre policy had resulted in the closing of the Workshop and the resignation of Professors Baker to Yale. With the demise of Workshop, the CRIMSON made its first of seven attacks on President Lowell's regime.

BUT the big guns were saved for the announcement of President Lowell plan. For some reason or other, previous board had sponsored the plan, the 1928 board was vehemently opposed. Even after the Houses were built, the CRIMSON bore malice to the system, and looked with democratic indignation at the "aristocratic tendencies" of Lowell House high table. In the early morning of 1932, when almost all the House units were already under way, the CRIMSON ridiculed the fad for House colors and emblems, and sarcastically foresaw "heraldic rabbits cavorting on Leverett pajamas."

In 1932, the Depression hit Plympton street hard, and the paper could not meet mortgage payments, much less pay its normal expenses. Papers were small, advertisements few and far between, although headlines were met, even at the personal exoense of editors.

Even in the middle of economic crisis, however, Crimeds managed to disagree among themselves so violently that eleven top-notch editors resigned to launch a new daily, the Harvard Journal. Another battle, reminiscent of the almost forgotten News skirmish, was on.

What was left of the CRIMSON rallied around to wage a battle to the death with the rebel editors. The "100 Days War" ended by June, when the Journal editors had had it, financially and academically, and the Crime emerged victorious but not unchanged. The presence of a vigorous competitor had forced the CRIMSON to become a far more modern and readable paper that it had been before the schism.

While the CRIMSON had numerous advantage several disadvantages in the war with the Journal, the real hero was Arthur Hopkins. From 1929 right up to the present, chief linotypist Art has been the hero of the nightly "Battle of the Bilge." It was he who guided the inexperienced editors through the 100 Days War, and it was Art who again recued the CRIMSON during the Second World War.

Following the defeat of the Journal in the 30's, the Crime's next major opponent was the commercialtutoring schools. In 1939, when its conscience would have been hurt more by complacency than its pocketbook was injured by courage, the paper rejected advertising from what it called the "intellectual brothels" and began a crusade which saw their within a year.

The paper emerged from battle flushed with victory and financially, very, very able. Red ink a thing of the past.

By 1943 the Crimson was fat and sassy, and the 70th anniversary was an occasion of unstinted self-congratulation. The president of the United States took time out to write; "As an old CRIMSON man...I am sure that I voice the sentiments of all of that company of happy men when I say that none of them would exchange his Crimson training for any other experience or association of his college days..."

There was little for that company of happy men to be happy about, however, as the undermanned staff found publication a terrific struggle during the early years of the war. The suspension of the paper on May 27, 1943 had appeared inevitable for quite a while.

Before it quit, the Crimson set up a Graduate Board to keep a watchful eye on its temporary successor, The Harvard Service News. The substitute was a four-column, semi-weekly, semi-literate sheet that was not allowed to express editorial opinion. Although it was circulated free to military personnel, civilians in the University wouldn't take the Service News on a bet.

After the War, the CRIMSON resumed publication, and soon reoccupied its position as a potent force in the Harvard community and one of the country's best college newspapers. Students under the G.I. Bill began to take an interest in the CRIMSON in the late Forties and early Fifties, and the paper went through a period of girlie gags, questionable pictures, and more or less constant warfare with the Deanery.

In the spring of 1958, an article by William W. Bartley III '56 set off what is probably history's most famous Crimson-caused debate. Writing on religion at Harvard, Bartley unearthed the fact that the Rev. George A. Buttrick, Preacher to the University, had enforced (with President Pusey's implicit support) a standing order barring Jewish marriages in Memorial Church. This led to widespread and often heated debate over the nature of Memorial Church and over the question of whether Harvard was a sectarian or secular university.

Finally, the Corporation, while affirming the basic Christian character of the Church, opened it for all "private" services. The Corporation said that the University "does not intend to assert the validity of the tenets of any denomination or creed." Pusey said, "If I were asked whether Harvard were a secular university, I would answer, 'Yes.' But it has within it a tradition of worship; one could wish that this were broad enough to include everyone in the community."

In the fall of 1960, the CRIMSON began including most of its feature articles in a supplement, called the "Weekly Review." In the spring of 1961, the "Crimson Review" was published in a half-size, magazine format.

Last spring, the CRIMSON again upset the University by a timely discovery. One of its reporters found that College diplomas were to be printed in English instead of Latin. This dispute culminated on two large riots in two nights, the second of which had to be stopped with tear gas.

Today, the CRIMSON is well off financially, and probably at its journalistic and technical peak. It is one of the few college dailies to withstand the strain of a six-day week, and looks forward to remaining vigorous.

CRIMSON COMPETITION

Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors will get a chance to learn more about the present-day CRIMSON on Monday and Tuesday, when convivial after-dinner meetings will open the 1961 fall competition. All four boards -- News, Editorial, Business, and Photography -- welcome undergraduates who would like to try their hand at newspaper work. The free beer will start flowing at 7:30 both nights in the Crimson building at 14 Plympton St.