Warburg Remembers When R.O.T.C. Caused University Dissension

The big issue in 1915-1916, when I was writing editorials for the CRIMSON, was whether or not Harvard should organize an R.O.T.C. regiment.

Opinion on this subject was strongly divided, both among the faculty and the student body. Some favored President Wilson's cautions neutrality; a few were out to be a majority after considerable debate favored the sort of "preparedness" advocated by former President Theodore Roosevelt.

After having breakfast one day, at the Institute of 1770, with T.R., upon the invitation of my classmate. Archie Roosevelt, I became a firm adherent of the "Preparedness" school. Graham B. Blaine ball in an editorial campaign to get a Harvard Regiment, started. As I remember, we were at one time summoned to the house of President Lowell, who tried to dissuade us from this project. Later on, Mr. Lowell changed his mind and withdrew his objections. The episode impressed itself upon my mind, because it was my first experience with "freedom of the press."

There were doubtless other "great issues" in those years about which the CRIMSON fulminated. This is the only one I remember clearly; perhaps because the role of the United States in world affairs has been the major preoccupation of my study and writing in later years. James P. Warburg '16   (Author, Director of Bank of Manhattan Company)