Clarification

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be with-held.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

As one interested in the commuter problem and having spent some time in assisting the investigating committee, might I use your columns to clarify the present situation?

As you indicated a few days ago in a news article, The Investigating Committee has virtually completed its task for the final drawing up of a report. As a result of their many hours of work they have, in brief, determined the following facts:

1. Mr. Conant's former home on Oxford Street and the former Trident Club on Quincy Street would be unsatisfactory due to the lack of sufficient space for a lunch room and common room. The total area available for a lunch room would be only two hundred square feet larger than that now in use in the P.B.H. and the cost of the necessary remodeling would undoubtedly be far out of proportion to the advantages gained.

2. The Hemenway Gym offers an available area twice as large as that now in use at the P.B.H. and space for other suggested facilities. The Committee, I believe, is of the opinion that the cost of the necessary repairs here would be considerably smaller than in any other building and the advantages considerably greater.

3. About seventy per cent of those answering the questionnaire recently sent out by the committee are in favor of making some voluntary contribution in support of such a centre.

At its various meetings the following proposals and plans have been brought forward.

1. That a cafeteria with a more varied menu be provided to attract men eating in the square.

2. Common rooms and a ping pong room as well as a library be provided.

3. That the commuters have their own staff of tutors and officers in the proposed centre, as is the present practice in the houses.

4. That a graduate student be placed in charge of the building in return for his board and room thus saving the expense of a full time steward and providing an agency for integrating the varied social, educational, and athletic activities of the group.

The Committee has consistently taken the stand that whatever attempts are made toward the realization of these goals must be done on the basis of a logical, rational, and feasible plan carefully drawn up and respectfully presented to University Hall.

It has further definitely determined to do everything in its power to avoid the slightest semblance of a mass attack by a disgruntled and radical minority upon the University, making impossible and extreme demands with a vaporous and absurd threat of scandal mongering and ballyhoo.

On the contrary, the committee has discarded all such proposals and has engaged in the task of arranging a permanent commuter organization to aid it in convincing the University in a reasonable manner of the real needs of the group and of the benefits which would accrue to the college as a whole by taking the proposed steps. Such an organization would give coherence and unity to the movement as well as providing a more accurate index of its scope and importance.

It is the sincere hope of this group that by these measures Harvard may tend to change for commuters from a semi-correspondence school to one approximating the well balanced program now available to house men. Herbert D. Tobin '35.