LITTLE DICTATORS

Dear Dr. Pusey:

I certainly hope that, in addition to having these Fascist-Communist students who took over University Hall arrested, you will also see that they are expelled from Harvard.

I am a member of the Harvard Class of 1936 and the Harvard Business School Class of 1938. When I was in college I was of a considerable "liberal" turn of mind myself and I think that there is something wrong with young people who look around and see the sort of condition the world is in and not want to do something about it. I believe in the almost permissiveness towards these young people as far as their expressing their opinions and attempting to back these opinions with action consistent with the rights of others to have differing opinions.

I believe, however, that the recent action of the students in University Hall goes far beyond democratic processes into the realm of dictatorship or anarchism. I believe that this sort of action should be dealt with in the sternest possible fashion. The idea that students who have a four-year residence at the University should insist by force that their idea of how this 333 year-old University should be run, how far into Cambridge it should expand, and some of their other outre plans is patently ridiculous. It's amazing that they have not yet told the University officials how often they may go to the bathroom.

Last fall I accompanied a friend on a tour of New England and in the course of that tour I took him to visit Harvard--my first return there in a number of years. I was ashamed for him to see the sleazy characters who were wandering around the Yard. However, I would not have one lock of their greasy looking, long hair shorn by edict nor force them near a drop of water nor insist that they wear perfume. But I certainly cannot say that I was proud of the outward appearance of the old Alma Mater as far as its students were concerned.

While I am on this writing spree--does Harvard not have any Conservative faculty members? It seems that all one hears about are the Arthur Schlesinger Jrs. and the John Kenneth Galbraiths. In fact, it was largely due to this situation and Mr. Galbraith's de haut en bas attitude towards the Harvard Business School as reported in the Wall St. Journal (while he is battening on the fruits of of the Affluent Society created by Capitalism) that I recently changed my will leaving half my estate in trust to the Harvard Business School instead of to Harvard University as it originally read.

I feel sure that you will have the support of the vast majority of the alumni if you sever the connection of these little dictators among the student body from the College. H.R. Byers '36