Capp's Hollow Man

At Capp warns against the "MacCarmunist" influence on education and the danger of a weak president--in today's prediction of Conant's successor. This is the fourth of the scientific series on Harvard's next chief executive. Capp writes:

"Picking a new president for Harvard is a different problem in 1953 than it has been in all the University's history.

"Heretofore, Harvard picked a president to please the alumni, the faculty, the student body, and one who could be relied upon to uphold the American tradition of freedom of inquiry, freedom of criticism, and the freedom to make honest mistakes.

"Now, with Harvard being watched and threatened by the MacCarmunists (a group which denounces Russian Communism, but which is selling us and our schools the same ideas of terror, suffocation, and frightened conformity that the Russians failed to sell us), you'd better pick a man they approve of, or the New Commissars of MacCarmunism will denounce the University, and the alumni won't give you any money.

"The MacCarmunists do not approve of anyone who in the past has done some talking or thinking, who has had some pity, and who has had some guts. In this respect, as in all others, they operate exactly as their brothers in the Kremlin don.

"And so, if you want to be approved of by the MacCarmunists and not upset the alumni, you had better pick a guy without a head, because then you'd be guaranteed that he hadn't done any talking or thinking in the past that the New Commissars of Education disapprove of now: without a heart, because he may have, in the past been moved to Christian pity for human beings who have now been declared in human by our New Commissars of Who Are Good Guys Who Are Had Guys: and without guts, because with 'em he may have, in the past, objected to ideas that our New Commissars of Patriotic Thinking have now endorsed.

"If you pick such a guy, you won't have any trouble. Also, you won't have any university. And he'll took this."