Arthur Ballantine, Father of Crimson Family, Worked on Paper With Franklin Roosevelt

This is in response to your request that I of 1904 write something for the forthcoming Anniversary issue of the CRIMSON. The response is made very gladly because I am pleased to know that CRIMSON editors of the present time still recognize those of a class as far back as ours, and also because the CRIMSON was to me, as to many editors of our time, a most rewarding experience. I don't mean financially, although in those simple Theodore Roosevelt days our skillful business ends made the lot of even the plain editor not only literary but lucrative. All editors worked hard then not only in running for the paper but also to maintain its quality.

The managing editor under which several of us ran was the mighty Roy Bukley '02, in later life reduced to the rank of a mere United States Senator. Our group included Franklin D. Roosevelt who was our first president and who then displayed his great literary prowess. Frank lived on the college "gold coast" but even then was inclined towards politics and steered the Crime behind causes such as better fire protection in the yard dormitories, where we had then to rely on old rope fire escapes.

For getting really acquainted with the far-flung University there was nothing like running for the Crime and chasing from the astronomical observatory to the custodian of the glass flowers, and also to the residences of various professors for possible scoops. The candidacy was calculated to give toughness which in the early New England days came from deer stalking and Indian fighting.

I think that my two sons, Arthur A. Ballantine, Jr. '36 and John W. Ballantine '42 really got more discipline from the Crime than they did later on from the Navy. I cannot refrain from referring to the fact that my older son, Arthur, Jr. of 1936 who helped to pilot the Crime through days of the attempted split-off of the Journal, is now back at his real interest and with his wife is publishing a small daily paper in Durango, Colorado, where I know he is helping to spread the CRIMSON spirit. Arthur A. Ballantine '04   (Former Undersecretary of the Treasury, Lawyer)