Dance Chairmen Disagree

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In your editorial of November 22, entitled, "Divided We Stand," the CRIMSON showed several blatant misconceptions and unfamiliarity with the facts. As the official news organ of Harvard College, we believe you and your readers would like to hear the Inter-House Social Affairs Committee side of the story. We have set forth the following points in an endeavor to clear up the situation.

1. The Inter-House Social Committee did not come up only "two weeks ago" with a grandiose plan for the Yale weekend. We spent long hours in the first weeks of school carefully working out a plan that would be fair and agreeable to all. We spent considerable time and effort in arriving at what we think is a sound and equitable policy.

2. Leverett House decided last October, at the first meeting of the Social Committee, not to go along with the other Houses on the Yale weekend dances. It did not decide "only last week."

3. Leverett House has not resigned from the Inter-House Social Affairs Committee as you inferred.

4. During the fall of 1948 the exact plan was not in operation. At that time each House placed its total gross receipts in the Social Committee treasury and he Social Committee paid the expenses of each House then divided what was left among the Houses. Because one House spends more and the other less on expenses, this year we are going to split the gross receipts and let each House pay for it own expenses, thereby not penalizing any House for economy of operation.

5. The Harvard community is a dual community. One community centering in each House, the other that of the entire undergraduate student body. We are all Harvard men as well as individual House men. There is no better time than the biggest weekend of the year, the Yale weekend, for all Houses to throw open their doors and welcome all Harvard and Yale men and their dates to the varied program of orchestras and entertainment which each House has to offer. Our system, under interchangeability, allows a couple to travel from House to House and enjoy this varied program.

6. You ask for interchangeability but not the splitting of tha gross receipts. This is an impossibility. By opening the common rooms of those Houses with smaller dining halls, all the Houses are approximately equal in the number of couples permitted entrance under the fire laws. Under your plan a central House would sell tickets to an overflow crowd, send the overflow to fill a less strategically located House without the adequate compensation for the overflow. This is quite unfair to the less centralized House.

7. Your statement that it "blunts initiative and drive of the House Dance Committees to work hard and plan well" is false. Each Dance Committee does its utmost to provide their House with the best dance possible. They all work together to increase the total sales for the bettermen of their individual Houses. We all have top grade expensive orchestras (George Graham, Chappie Arnold, Gene Dennis, Harvardians, and Kent Bartlett) and high quality entertainment for the 1950 Harvard-Yale dances. The inter-House solidarity permits economy of advertising and ticket printing, thus leaving more funds for more expensive items at the dance. This is all to the benefit of the ticket purchaser . . .

Edmund J. Blake, Jr., Chairman, Dunster Dance Committee; John C. Blankenship, Chairman, Winthrop Dance Committee; Donald T. Fox, Chairman, Eliot Dance Committee; Jack N. Freyhof, Chairman, Adams Dance Committee; Joel Rome and Paul H. Voreacos, Co-Chairmen, Kirkland Dance Committee; Miles I. Levine, Chairman, Lowell Dance Committee.

The inter-House Social Committee is factually correct in its first and second objections, although the rift between Leverett and the other six Houses did not widen sufficiently to come to public notice until two weeks ago. On the main points of its stand, however, the CRIMSON still feels that it is correct.

1. The third objection cited an inference which we do not find in the editorial.

2. Number four forgets that "economy of operation" may in fact mean poor orchestras and entertainment, under a profit-sharing system. No one is penalized for economy or extravagance if each House is completely responsible for its own dances.

3. Points five and six say that interchangeability without splitting gross profits in impossible-even though Leverett and Eliot, to mention only one case, did just that on the Dartmouth weekend. Also the editorial discussed the reasons why "centralized location" has little to do with volume of ticket sales.

4. Evidence from the conspicuous failure of several House dances indicates that the initiative and drive of Dance Committees can get blunted, and a financial free ride certainly increases the possibility of this happening in the future. -Ed.