Independent vies with Crimson on summer subsidy

The CRIMSON and the Harvard Independent have begun to joust in earnest though neither has given a clue to its readers.

The contest is over money-the lucrative plum awarded by the University's summer school to the publisher of the Summer News. Last year, the CRIMSON received a $6000 University subsidy for putting out 15 issues twice a week during summer school.

The Independent, started last Oct. 9 as an alternative outlet for campus writing and opinion. now wants the summer contract to help establish itself as a going concern at Harvard.

The CRIMSON, which could afford to be tolerantly patronizing toward the Independent until now, claims the summer contract is a matter of financial life-and-death.

The Independent's board voted last night to bid competitively against the CRIMSON for the contract. provided the two organizations were put on equal footing.

"That's a big gyp." was the immediate reaction of Jim Fallows '70, outgoing CRIMSON President. "We've put out that summer news for the past 10 or 15 years. Mainly on the basis of that, we bought our own press and hired our own printers. We wouldn't have done that if we hadn't expected them to have something to do year-round."

Morris Abrams Jr. '70. the Independent president protested that the University was giving the advantage to the CRIMSON. He said that Thomas Crooks, Master of Dudley House and director of the summer school. informed the Independent last week that any competitor wouldhave to underbid the CRIMSON by $500 to get the contract.

"We think a $500 advantage to the CRIMSON is unfair," said Abrams. "We want to bid on a dollar figure, but we're willing to make a bid only if we can make it on a fair and equitable basis. We 'want the criteria, all the criteria, to be set before the bidding."

Fallows, acknowledging that CRIMSON editors had tried recently to talk the Independent out of competitive bidding, complained about the entire procedure.

"We need this to survive financially," he said. "We have fixed costs over the summer and the Independent doesn't.

"This should either be not-bid at all, or the handicap (in favor of the CRIMSON) should be higher than $500 in view of the years of dependable service we have given them (the University)."

The summer expenses of the CRIMSON, he said, are about $20,000. Fallows also said the University gave the CRIMSON the go ahead last summer to start selling advertising and subscriptions for summer '70.

He claimed the Independent, using alumni subsidies, could afford to submit a money-losing bid on the summer contract-a charge that Abrams denied.

Abrams conceded that the Independent had been losing funds at the rate of about $1000 a month, but he said the Independent's bid would "reflect financial realism."