'27 Enjoys 'Last Supper', Writes Pornography Visits Mediums, and Emerges Mature Seniors

Sophomore at last--no longer would the man from the class of 1927 be at the bottom of Harvard's intellectual pile; no longer would pert Radcliffe classmates snootily tell him that they didn't date "freshmen." He felt he had grown up over the summer, and might now talk about the current Coolidge-LaFollette Davis Presidential race with authority. During the fall, he Crimson treated him to an almost undiluted diet of football, religion, politics, and more football.

Registration showed that the class had dropped to 763 men, although college enrollment reached a new high--2,909. The socially-minded sophomores soon found that curbs on club rushing activities before October were more stringent than ever.

To keep the politically-minded informed the Crimson ran a daily column called, "The Campaign at Harvard." Charges and counter charges from the newly-organized Lafollette-Wheeler Club and the Old Guard Republican Organization furnished steady entertainment for undergraduates. Even President-emeritus Eliot entered the fray by taking over the leadership of the John W. Davis League which was stumping for the Democratic nominee. In a college straw vote poll Collidge's national victory was anticipated as he won by a two to one margin.

Eleven sophomores were retained on the varsity football team when coach Fisher made his first cut on the second day of practice. Among the '27 standouts were tackle Leo Daley, quarterback Nathaniel Hamlen, halfback Alfred Miller, and quarterback Isadore Zarakov. Fisher kept to his old system of many promotions, however, and several sophomores got the long a waited call, "Give him a red shirt," and left the scrubs.

Fall crew showed the greatest improvement over the previous year and sophomores Geoffrey Platt and Johnny gates made the first boat, while Barrette scudder stroked the third. Four 1927 freshman regulars--Richard Thomas, Joseph MacKinnon, Hiram Gans, and Walter Tresvett--made the soccer team which had a four win, four loss season. Individually, John S. Malick placed first in the 100 yard dash and the 440 in the University fall track meet.

On September 27 the University announced its program for building a new Graduate School of Business Administration. George F. Baker had given $5 million to constrict the buildings, which were to go up on the other side of the Charles.

A month later the Corporation planned five new Yard buildings to be built along Massachusetts Avenue. The Planning Board also proposed a new Fogg Museum building and a chapel as a memorial to Harvard's World War dead.

This fall the football really played to a nationwide audience; for the first time the games were broadcast coast to coast by WNAC and WBZ. The season was still rather unsuccessful, however.

Remembering the class of 1927's freshman academic difficulties, the faculty came up with a new policy, "no probation after November hours." Relived, the sophomores helped make the Dartmouth game a sellout, but four fumbles gave the Big Green a 6 to 0 win. Despite this setback, football seemed to be uppermost in the undergraduate mind--so much so that Dean Greenough '98 complained. "Mother prefers to have her son a quarterback on the football team rather than have him a scholar."

Disaster struck again. B.U. fell, but inspired Princeton romped to a 34 to 0 victory and Brown soon followed suit, 7 to 0. The sophomore clutched his date and glumly took a bootlegged nip at every adverse touchdown. Finally, 1924 repeated itself as songs, cheers, rallies, and secret lineups failed to prevent undefeated Yale from bulldozing the Crimson, 19 to 6.

In November the class took time out to elect new officers and chose Bayard L. Kilgour, Jr., president; Alfred H. Miller, vice-president; and Frederick Vanderbilt Field, secretary-treasurer.

Meanwhile trouble came when the University denied Professor George P. Baker '87, head of the 47 Workshop, a new drama building. He offered to raise the money himself, but the Administration clamped down. Harvard's loss was Yale's gain, as lured by the promise of funds. Baker went to New Haven and established the Yale Drama chool. Dean Briggs gave Baker a farewell gift and the Workshop held a final meeting entitled. "The Last Aot." The CRIMSON ran a black-bordered Memoriam Box expressing sympathy to the Workshop family "on the loss of its father, George Pierce Baker."

About this time the Union, remembering the previous spring's Russell Lowell debated, amended its constitution to ensure all guests complete freedom of speech. And Widener Library book pilfering reached new heights. In January sophomores fingered their wallets and breathed a sigh of relief that the new $50 increase in tuition would only apply to new students.

Gripes about Memorial Hall food were always prevalent. After 2,300 students claimed in a college poll that they never ate there, the University decided to discontinues the dining hall. Black arm-banded students flocked to the evening meal on January 10 to celebrate the Hall's "Last Supper" with a turkey dinner.

Midyears were coming and causing worry to others besides the victims. Track coach Farrell said gloomily, "The main thing on the track calendar just now is the mid-year examination," and Coach Campbell told baseball aspirants that "An ineligible athlete is a disgrace to Harvard." As sophomores retired to Widener, the cram schools in one last burst offered out-rate printed lecture notes at a dollar, Later the Student Council rejected a suggested honor system for exams.

No Free Speech?

At the end of the term Representative Blanchard '94 and Bates'19 of the Massachusetts Legislature broke into the news by charging that the University was under the iron thumb of big business: "Freedom of speech is dead while big business forces every scholar to say only what J. P. Morgan and his crowd permit him to say. Harvard succeeded in getting $5 million for the Business School, but it couldn't raise a cent to keep the greatest dramatic teacher in America."

Blanchard's position to launch a state investigation of Harvard was defeated unanimously.

After an exciting midyear during which the sun was eclipsed on January 24 and, according to predictions by the Seventh Day Adventists, the world was to end in February 6, life in Cambridge went "back to normalcy."

Winter sports came to an end and the sophomores had been well-pre resented. The changing hockey lineup saw Edward Bailey. William Ellison, Hamlet, and Zarakov starting at one time or anther. The four win, two loss record was climaxed by the February Yale playoff. In finally won I to 0 after 87 minutes of play. For the first time since 1922 the basketball team, paced by sophomore John Leekley, won over Yale (34 to 25) and ended with a 12 win, two loss season.

Ellsworth Haggerty '27 set a new Harvard-Yale record in the BAA meet and the team put on a superb performance in downing Dartmouth and Cornell. Wrestler Henry R. Wood--now in the 158 pound class--starred for the mat squad, as did Herbert Rawlins, Jr. for the squash team. The latter went on the win the University championship. And all athletes were happy when the College announced that Fisher would continue as head football coach.

Obscenity Reigns

Trying to avoid court bans became the college's spring fad. First the Liberal Club obtained Margaret Sanger, a devotee of birth controlled who had been banned by Mayor Curley, as a luncheon speaker.

But it was the Lampoon's April "Literary Dig eat" Issue that really roused the ire of the Boston police. The Issue, banned for "desecration of the flag," depicted on the cover a tipsy Washington crossing the Delaware with the Caption underneath, "Sit down, you're rocking the boat." Although many issues were confiscated, Lamp ran a second printing and sold hundreds. The parody's price. sky-rocketed--as $12 a copy in New York city.

Even the usually staid Advocate got into trouble. Although the post office declared its parody of "Dial" was mail-able, Boston still banned it. A nude man, line drawings and obscene Jokes provoked Municipal Court Judge John Duff to say. "Not in years has more indecent literature' been placed on sale in Boston. Even the Holy Bible did not escape their perverted brains."

May brought the sophomore smoker, the outing of the scare that a hotel would be built on Holyoke and Mt. Auburn Streets, and William Jennings Bryan to speak on "democracy." On the eleventh, 2,000 avid crow fans waited until 3 p.m. to se Harvard got off to a fast start against Penn, M.I.T., and Cornell in the Quadrangular Regatta, rough water had postponed the race for three hours. The Cantab and Penn Crew soon left the others far behind. Matching stroke for stroke they swept down the Charles, but Harvard took advantage of a snapped oarlock in the Quaker shell to win a thrilling victory.

Led by hard hitting Zarakov and first baseman Clement Candy, the baseball team went into the Yale series with a nine win, 12 defeat record. It was the first time in Harvard baseball history that the Crimson met Yale with more defeats that victories. Yale then trounced Harvard, 25 to 15 and 18 to 4. In track Haggerty took a first in the ICAA mile run-but the favored team later lost to Yale. Sophomores Geoffrey Platt and Robert Ladd tried hard, but the crew lost to Yale again.

A little disheartened by the fact that Yale had won every major sporting match, the sophomore took his exams and went home. His college career was half over.

Juniors who returned to Cambridge in the fall had to wind their way though groups of carpenters and bricklayers as they hurried top registration surge of building that marked the last few years of President Lowell's administration saw six new edifices mushroom on the campus with still more on the drawing boards. Lionel, Mower, Straus, Lehman, McKinlock and the Fogg Museum would soon be ready for use, and across the river workmen were digging the foundations for the new Business School.

As if President Lowell's innovations were contagious, the football team, with its new fisher-Daley stratagems, bared its muscles and thrashed hapless Middlebury College by 68 to 0 for the largest Harvard score since 1891. Undergraduate jubiliation, however, slowly died and turned to dismay as Holy Cross, Dartmouth and Princeton drubbed the Crimson on successive weekends. In the gloom overemphasis in college football. Mother Advocate, sensing crusade in the making, trudged a few yards up Plympton Street to borrow the cudgel. "Football" she said in her October issue, "may actually become professional."

While the journalist salve might have soothed the University's hurt pride, the team didn't seem to listen. Determined to salvage a mediocre season. It marched determinedly into the stadium to face a highly favored Yale powerhouse. Battling within the shadow of its own goal-posts for 60 minutes, the varsity kept the Bulldog leashed and gained a 0 to 0 tie. The nation's press was unanimous in its praise for the courageous eleven.

Coats and Cars

And as some 3,000 undergraduates and their dates walked jubilantly across the Anderson bridge many of them sporting raccoon coasts and flasks full of bootlegged whiskey, the CRIMSON chuckled. "Do you see the Coat that fellow is wearing? No it is not His Own. What does that Matter? It might as well be. It is his Roommate's. There are nine of them. All Told, who room together. His roommate, the one who Bought the fur coat I mean, felt he had to have it to keep Up with Everyone Else. Now, it is All he can do to keep up with the Coat. He didn't Mind buying that car to live with the Coat., but it does seem a shame that he can never get Coat and Car together."

After the football season, the battle raged over de-emphasis and Harvard turned towards the idea of "athletics for all." William J. Bingham '16 was appointed athletic director. The University had taken more than four months to screed through a list of nominees, and it chose its man wisely, Bingham made the Harvard intramural program the best in the country.

Undergraduates were also arguing about America's entry into the World Court. They listened to Lowell's plea for U.S. participation and made Frederick Vanderbilt Field chairman of a student council investigating committee. It would have taken quite a class oracle to prophecy where the popular Field's international interests would finally lead.

While there seems to have been no bona-fide clairvoyants, the campus boasted a surplus of phonies. Mental telepathy and thought transmission had become the latest fad in an era where undergraduates bit eagerly at any dish labeled exotic. There was Margery, who claimed telepathy limbs, and Dr. and Mrs. Crandon, another pair of popular mediums. The University, in an attempt to rip the blinders off a gullible populace, persuaded several instructors to sign up for seances to expose the spiritualists. Subsequently, the pair of prestidigitators packed up and left the town.

Denied access to the medium's parlor, the Junior had a large field of entertainment yet to be explored. John Phillip Souse arrived in Cambridge with his famous band for a concert. Over at Symphony Hall Serge Koussevitzky and a young graduate student named G. W. Wood worth were training the Glee Club for a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And the Hasty Pudding Theatricals were recruiting talent for "1776", a play that was to travel around the country, with W.E. Wilson as a very charming young heroine.

The Junior, in fact, was just beginning to come to his own in the College's activities. John F. W. Whitbeck, captain of the tennis team, again captured the University tournament. A strong track team led by Juniors Alfred Miller and Ells worth Haggerty dominated the indoor Eastern tracks and won the IC AA indoor championship. The debating team tool the measure of Oxford arguing that Socialism "was detrimental to human progress."

As far as '27 was concerned, progress was here to stay. Eddie Rickenbacker predicted that within 25 years autos would be outmoded and airplanes would take over the transportation business. Juniors smiled and went home for the Christmas vacation and a whirl of parties. Some of the more adventurous looked with envy on the expedition that was leaving for Yucatan or listened wide eyed to accounts of the Mountaineering Club's attempts to climb Everest.

As the spring term began, undergraduates had a new aid in choosing their courses. The CRIMSON published its first "Confidential Guide to Undergraduate Courses" to the glee and dismay of undergraduates and instructors respectively.

The new term was a happy one for Harvard athletics. The hockey team skated to victory after victory, smashing Dartmouth to take the Eastern title-William Ellis on was chosen to lead the next year team. As usual, a strong squash squad grabbed the national championship: Herbert N. Rawlins was elected captain for the next season. In the midst of triumph, football hopes soared as Arnold Horween '21, a football hero of a few years back, became the varsity coach.

As the weather grew warmer, the crews started rowing on the Charles, and the baseball team, thanks largely to Isadore Zarakov's booming bat, swept to the Big Three championship. The crew, however, was not no fortunate, having a mediocre season. Geoffrey Platt was chosen to captain the crew for '27, On the cinders, the track team fell to Yale by only one-third of a point and came in third behind Southern California the IC AA meet, held at Soldiers field. The polo squad, with Royal Burnett at three and R. B. Pinkerton as captain, won the Eastern title.

Off the playing field, the Junior practiced his chariest on in preparation for the Prom, which was being planned by John time were the Student Council elections. The officers for the next year would be Leo Francis Daley, president: John Randolph Burke, vice-president: Henry S. Wood bridge, secretary; and Frederick Vanderbilt Field, treasurer.

The big issues which were dividing the nation were reflected in campus discussion. Professor Kirtley K. Mather argued that evolutionary theory should be taught in the schools. H. L. Mencken, vitriolic editor of the "American Mercury," brought his battle against American "Babbittry" to the University as he attacked the Watch and Ward Society. In a poll, the CRIMSON found the College strongly in favor of the Volstead act but divided on the basic issue of prohibition.

Harvard had its own controversy, top. The Student Council issued a report advising the University to split the three undergraduate classes into separate houses, each holding two to three hundred students, in a plan somewhat like the Oxford-Cambridge system. The Class of '27 would never enjoy the befit of the plan, but the Council's report led directly to the Present House system.

The new system would see the dormi-.4To get into CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND's English 5 men had to sign up the spring before. In 1925 "The Copeland Reader" appeared: priced up to $35.