LAMONT TAKE NOTICE

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Most of us in Harvard College have the undoubted privilege and dubious pleasure of using the Lamont Library to some extent during every examination period. And most of us, driven to the library at an intemperate hour, after a hurried breakfast, in order to return a nine o'clock book, have occasion to visit the gentlemen's restrooms. It is with increasing irritation that we find the walls and doors of the stalls in said restrooms covered with the vilest obscenities. Such drawing and invitations have no place in Harvard College, at least publicly. To illbreeding, feeble wit, or inordinate coarseness, some of these vulgarities may perhaps be attributed. But it seems in the majority of cases only sexually perverted men (to use the word carelessly) could have perpetrated such crudities. Imagination these drawings do not lack; but it is of a twisted nature and content that we presume no normally developed student could have concocted, even allowing for the merely stupid and gross person who customarily scribbles on toilet walls.

That it is impossible for the library authorities to put a stop to this defacement directly seems evident. Nevertheless, the walls should, in our opinion, be daily washed, even at the cost of added janitorial service. It does not necessitate Victorian moralism or feminine squeamishness to regard these vulgarities outrageous. Perchance, a visiting dignitary may some day be inspecting Lamont and feel the need of relief. That he should be faced with vile and obscene drawings, unworthy of the name of Harvard, is an infuriating disgrace. The library authorities should see to it that a relentless erasure war is waged against this sort of indecent depravity; and perhaps they will at least succeed in compelling the perverted minority to make their assignments elsewhere. Jackson M. Bruce, Jr. '53   Robert G. Lown, 53   Charles L. Squler, '53   John Zentay, '53