Pro New Varsity Club

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Once again the CRIMSON due to its usual haste and short-sightedness has failed to grasp the long-term significance of a project. I am referring to your editorial condemning the Corporation's decision to erect a new Varsity Club. In a high-handed journalistic manner you have stated that Allston Burr '89 had merely indicated interest in the project. Those close to him realized that he had his heart set on erecting such a building for many years. He was a man of such calibre, however, that he left the money with no strings attached, hoping the University would see fit to erect a new building.

The need for a centrally located Varsity Club that would appeal to athletes and non-athletes and non-athletes alike seems to me too obvious to mention. Yet the CRIMSON has had difficulty in the past in seeing the obvious, so I will point out a few things.

The CRIMSON has published several editorials attacking the famous "Harvard indifference." Yet when a blow is to be struck against it, you bellow--NO--more tutorial.

The Corporation realizing that Athletics has become an integral part of the American scene plans to lay the cornerstone for a sensible approach to intercollegiate athletics. The new Varsity Club is the symbol of that realization and will reassure undergraduates and graduates alike that their efforts to see Harvard field representative athletic teams against its natural and long-standing opponents will not be wasted. But the CRIMSON will have none of this so you fill three paragraphs with vitriolic prose which recommends the resumption of the training table. Mere resumption of the training table would serve no purpose in itself, but the new Varsity Club and the good will and interest that it surely will revive, will. You have done the college a great is-service. Charles R. Glynn '50   Vice President, Harvard Varsity Club.