The Advocate: Danger Was Once Sweet

Dulce est periculum seems a rather extreme motto for a publication as mild and retiring as the Advocate. Usually considered a hangout for the "esthetes," sometimes not considered at all, the Advocate at present is a literary magazine in the strictest sense. Its primary aim, according to John Ratte '57, the president, is to "print the best of undergraduate writing, whether experimental or in a traditional form." But this is only a very recent development in the 90-year history of the magazine. Each board has its own special point of view, and at times the editors have really appeared to find danger enjoyable, if not sweet.

The five youths who first gathered under William G. Peckham's leadership in 1866, for example, advocated some astonishingly radical doctrines: chapel should no longer be compulsory; Harvard should become a University; and there should be closer student-faculty relationships. As any fool could plainly see, Peckham and his cohorts publishing the Advocate (then called the Collegian) were revolutionaries.

Although what the Collegian advocated was radical enough (for the time), it was perhaps more its attitude than its ideas that irked the college faculty. The newspaper not only criticized compulsory chapel, it did so through a mocking dialogue:

Socrates: Tell me, then, Glaucon, in the temple this morning how many were engaged in worship?

Glaucon: One, indeed.

Socrates: Whether was one conducting the worship and many listening, or do you say that no one was listening?

Glaucon: Not one, in truth, save by accident.

Socrates: And were there any who were busy marking the young men if they were absent?

Glaucon: You will find no one to deny it.

Socrates: How many, then, were there?

Glaucon: Four, O reverend sage.

Socrates: Then it seems that four were busy about the affairs of men, and one only about these things which concern the gods.

As one of the founders recalled in later, mellower years, "The tone of the newspaper was rather saucy." At any rate, whether because of its irreverence or its subversive ideas, after the first few issues the editors were ordered to stop publishing. Peckham, however, was indefatigable and sent untainted representatives to a faculty meeting to make some agreement. After much argument on both sides, the crisis was averted, and some weeks later the biweekly newspaper appeared, in a soberer form, as the Advocate.

Less than five years later, however, the first of several splinter groups broke off from the Advocate to form a new publication, causing the parent magazine to dub itself "Mother Advocate." This earliest offspring, like all the succeeding ones, was spawned for one basic reason, the Advocate's interests had become oriented exclusively in one direction, causing a few editors to grow disgruntled. The magazine's rabid interest in reform drove some of its more flippant members to form the Lampoon in 1871, leaving the Advocate more of a newspaper than anything else. In 1873, however, the CRIMSON appeared as a rival bi-weekly newspaper, and the Advocate board suddenly became more interested in the arts.

But since it attempted merely to entertain, another group of irritated editors revolted in 1875, this time to form the Harvard Monthly, which would have no truck with frivolity. Disturbed by the startling success of this new publication, the Advocate attempted to stem the tide by increasing the size of its paper, the extra space being devoted to serious material. In 1892, however, Advocate editors became "alarmed at the prevalence of tragic stories," and changed their line again. Until '95, it was felt that "the watchword of a useful college paper should be life, not literature." The '95 board, however, took a new tack, its emphasis being on short stories.

The various interests of Harvard's publications at this point are best summarized by an Advocate poem of 1902:

Let Lampy fling an antique jest And the Monthly gas on Ibsen

Our stories move serenely on With Summer Girls from Gibson.

Monthly Goes Bankrupt

The Monthly, with all its serious intent, seemed a permanent fixture at Harvard, and such writers as George Santayana and John Dos Passos were attracted to its ranks. Suddenly, however, in 1917, the Monthly was forced to declare bankruptcy, and its career was ended after over forty years of publication. Ironically, years later it was discovered that the magazine had a thousand dollars to its credit, but the last Monthly editor had long since graduated and no attempt was made to resurrect it.

Throughout the twenties the Advocate held its sway in undergraduate literature, with such men as T.S. Eliot and Conrad Aiken figuring notably in its ranks. In the thirties, however, as the Advocate's concerns became increasingly political, there was another burst of dissension, and Lincoln Kirstein formed Hound and Horn, a short-lived critical review. Another magazine, The Critic, succumbed in 1934, when it voted to merge with the Advocate.

The latest in this series of rebellious offshoot, "i.e., the Cambridge Review," was started last year by Leo Raditsa, who had become irritated by the apathy toward new ideas which prevailed in the Advocate. Raditsa feels that none of its members will assume any intellectual "responsibility," that is, the board will commit itself to no opinion nor does it attempt to find what is really new in intellectual and literary currents. Thus, by sticking exclusively to its present aim--to develop undergraduate craftsmen--the Advocate has shirked its responsibility as a publication.

No Undergraduate Opinion?

Raditsa, however, in his own search for new ideas has had to go far afield. In the first issue of "i.e.," Raditsa stated that its purpose was to express "undergraduate opinion," but apparently there is no undergraduate opinion, because undergraduate opinion, because undergraduate articles have not appeared since, with the exception of Raditsa's editorials.

Despite this intellectual vacuum, the Advocate has carried on, in its own meek way performing a valuable service. By solely publishing students' poetry and prose, the magazine causes very little excitement, but it does stimulate young writers, giving them the necessary illusion that they are getting somewhere. Aside from the pure stimulus to vanity, however, publishing in the Advocate has other, more concrete, advantages--many publishers subscribe to the magazine, and for a number of undergraduate writers it has served as a stepping stone to more lucrative satisfaction. Another aid to undergraduate writing is the board's criticism of pieces submitted, a thing of no small value to the young writer, who is always anxious, although often timid, about hearing reactions to his work.

Although through the years by fits and starts the Advocate has become increasingly literary in its bent, for a long while it still did not entirely abandon its motto. After the political period of the '80's, its editors merely seemed to prefer to find their danger in defending the freedom of the press--by testing the public censors with sensational (i.e., candid) stories and pornographic parodies. The first allegedly indecent story appeared in 1884, but 1894 was the year of the first major crisis, when "Kid," a story about a Harvardman and his mistress appeared.

People of this era found that lines like "I got so tired; I never was so tired in all my life, not even after a month on Charley Brigham's yacht," were really objectionable. An old Advocate editor wrote an irate letter to the CRIMSON, and the CRIMSON itself accused the Advocate of trying to boost its circulation through sensationalism. But the Advocate's defense was a telling one--"Modern art where it treats life demands realism and we contend that realism only ceases to be real art when the emotions it excites are such as we afterwards regret as having relaxed our moral fibre."

In one of its few parodies, the "Dial" parody of 1925, the problem of pornography arose again, but this time on the format, which contained two embracing nude figures and was entitled "Neo-Platonic Love." The Cambridge Police Inspector banned the magazine from newsstands, and the Boston Postmaster banned this issue from the mails, but national authorities later vindicated the magazine. Meanwhile, the issue had already sold out.

Pornography reared its ugly head for the last time in 1935, but this time the Attorney General of Massachusetts and Cambridge mothers, who feared the ruin of their children, combined to overpower a discomfited board of editors, six of whom resigned in order to escape prosecution.

Throughout its history, the Advocate has always considered its articles avant-garde. An example of this spirit is H.M. Wade's piece in 1934, "The Phoenix in the Babbit Warren," which ridiculed the "Balderdash and as the Saturday Review by superanhogwash poured out in such papers nuated professors whose knowledge of literature stops with Hardy." In the same issue, Charles R. Cherington said, "The poetry of Ezra Pound will LIVE."

Many of these articles and stories reappear from decade to decade in Advocate anthologies, which are designed, of course, to pluck the purse-strings of old grads. Occasionally in the past graduates have been asked to contribute to Graduate Issues. One of these contained such gems as "Sitting A Little Apprehensively on the World" by Bernard De Voto, "All, All Wasted" by Conrad Aiken, and "Fools Trespass When Angels Keep Off the Grass," by Thomas W. Slocum.

Advocate alumni have found time, however, to do more in a literary way than the titles above would indicate. Among their ranks are not only Eliot, Aiken, and DeVoto, but George Lyman Kittredge, Charles Townsend Copeland, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Wallace Stevens, Van Wyck Brooks, e.e. cummings, Robert Hillyer, Malcolm Cowley, and James Laughlin. In the dramatic line, John Mason Brown, Lincoln Kirstein, and Leonard Bernstein were Advocateers. A few have even become political luminaries: Teddy and F.D. Roosevelt, as well as A.M. Schlesinger, Jr. Such a list is certainly a telling justification for the Advocate's existence. That the alumni themselves feel that they owe much to the magazine is proven by their continued allegiance to it throughout the years, an allegiance recently manifested in the Advocate's announcement of plans for a new building to be financed almost entirely through alumni aid.

Whether all this alumni concern for the Advocate's new building is justifiable is open to question. Advocate buildings--there have been a number--have varied from one extreme in elegance to another in shabbiness, but the end result after a few years has always been chaos. At first the editors spent most of their time in their rooms, but in 1894 they found a home in an apartment on Church Street. Several more moves did not really better the Advocate's situation, but finally after a hard pull through the Great War, it moved into its first real home, a plain, old fashioned house at 24 Holyoke, known to tradition as the home of the first president of the University. Then, after a short period on Dunster Street, it moved to its present home on Bow Street.

The Advocate was, of course, unable to maintain the splendor of the early thirties for very long. Soon letters were being sent to all alumni to aid in paying off a mortgage. This drive did not meet with the best of success, and, as a result, the Advocate was forced to allow the presence of Benny Jacobson below it and The Bat Club above. This situation is not really the Scylla and Charybdis that it would seem: The Gold Coast keeps quite, and the Bats only make curious thumping noises.

Although the Advocate's quarters have been hard to keep in order, maintenance expenses have probably not figured to any great extent in the magazine's frequently hazardous financial situation. Since new buildings inevitably stimulate extravagant parties, however, it might be said that the Advocate's buildings have indirectly caused its downfall. Parties, at any rate, have been extravagant, and the most sumptuous ones have always been the Decennial dinners. The first one, held in 1876, and called afterwards the "great" dinner, was said to be "almost oppressive in its grandeur." Staged at the Parker House, it took three years to pay for.

It was at this first Decennial dinner that Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the honored guests, read a poem patterned after "The One-Horse Shay," and entitled "How the Old Horse Won the Bet.' This poem was not one of Holmes' masterpieces, but the board felt it was certainly worth publishing and sent their best material-monger, Everett Hale, around to see Holmes the next morning.

"Can't Find It"

Sources disagree as to Holmes' reaction to the request. One story has it that he said, "Young gentlemen, that poem might do to read before your board, but I hardly think it worthy of a place in your columns." A member of the board at the time, however, recalls that he merely muttered, "Can't find it. Can't find it," and rushed off down the street. At any rate, the board was somewhat dismayed to read this same poem two months later in the Atlantic.

The Advocate has always prided itself on its celebrity parties, but the presence of its noted guests (Ann Sheridan, Elizabeth Taylor, Gertrude Stein, and the Ballet Russe) has not prevented many of them from becoming quite wild. At parties for T.S. Eliot, of course, decorum has always prevailed, the atmosphere being more sentimental than sensual. But there was an entirely different air about the Elizabeth Taylor party. And the Dylan Thomas party was notable for the number of people who were thrown downstairs.

The annual banquets have been so primitive that every eatery in the area, except Chez Dreyfus, now refuses to extend its services to the Advocate. Since the damage at Chez Dreyfus last year was pretty severe (one member stuck his fork into the wall up to the handle), it is probably just as well that the magazine is getting a new building. There soon will be no other place available for annual banquets.

Although Mother Advocate is aging, and during the war sickened almost unto death, she has apparently recovered, and with each year, despite her retiring air, has become more vital. An evidence of this is in the Advocate readings, which feature undergraduates and other promising but unrecognized writers. Further, its contributors are re-publishing with the Atlantic and other magazines, as well as with general publishers, more each year.

One in Three a Poet

Critics may point out that this vitality is largely a matter of contribution from the Harvard community in general, not an achievement of the Advocate as an organization. There is some truth in this attitude. Much of the credit must go to a University in which, as Donald Hall says, "One student in three, if pressed, will admit that he is a poet." Perhaps more miraculous, however, and equally important, is that there are enough interested readers about to support an exclusively literary magazine, especially one filled solely by undergraduate pieces.

Despite the major role played by its contributors and subscribers, however, the work of the Advocate boards is, if passive, at least not always easy. The main problem faced by the board is the gathering of material, for, if many write, few are anxious to submit, in the fear of being published abortively. Another problem is the board's democratic process in selecting material; the criticism provided by many viewpoints is perhaps helpful in making an intelligent selection of stories and poems, but it has had the adverse effect of preventing the Advocate from adopting any policy whatever. Carping criticism has at times even deterred the writing of book reviews, most members of the board not feeling it worth their while to write a review which would inevitably be rejected. This, at any rate, has been their excuse.

Lately, however, book reviews, and even one editorial, have appeared, giving further proof of an Advocate renaissance. A symbol of this growth and energy is its new building, being built on a combination of tradition (the purses of alumni) and enterprise (undergraduate wheedling). The building may well represent the end of a period of prolonged post-war anemia. Hopefully, the Advocate's reawakened spirits will further the arts as much as conviviality