Honorary Degree Guessing Starts

The CRIMSON today announces its Nth Annual Honorary Degree Guessing Contest and adds a few sure bets of its own. The winner will receive a 1959 Freshman Register, so enter now at special Honorary Headquarters, 44 Bow St.

One thing is sure: If Harry S. Truman does not receive an honorary this June, the CRIMSON will not publish next year. (It's a promise.) The former President has been a likely candidate each year but, unlike his two successors, has never made the grade. One CRIMSON editor has even agreed to finance a trip to Cambridge for Truman, who was once mercilessly denied an honorary CRIMSON membership.

Definite choices for honoraries include Ralph McGill, publisher of the Atlanta Constitution and a great Harvard booster; McGeorge Bundy, a great Harvard and Yale supporter who will probably be honored by both institutions; composer Elliott Carter '30; George Beadle, who as Chancellor of the University of Chicago has honored some of Harvard's sons; Buell Gallagher, recently named University of California Chancellor, President Bunting of Radcliffe; Charles A. Coolidge '17, senior fellow of the Corporation; and possibly Adiai Stevenson or Allen Dulles.

Last year the annual honorary skirmish was enlivened when Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38 and John Kenneth Galbraith complained that the University honored too many Republicans and too few "liberal Democrats." According to the two professors, "No Democratic Governor of the Commonwealth has received an honorary degree for many decades, and no Republican Governor has failed to receive one." With Galbraith playing viceroy in India and Schlesinger glued to the White House TV set, President Pusey may go out on a limb this year and name Gov. Volpe--a Republican.

Local wags say that an honor to Volpe would be an overly-obvious "thanks" for a well-delivered veto on the "stilts" bill, and so the incumbent may have to wait a year.

The honored guests invariably include a pro-Western diplomat (probably an African this year), a clergyman (perhaps Episcopal Bishop James Pike--and then again perhaps not), a retiring administrator (Wilbur Bender?), and a high government official (Dean Rusk)?

Don't rule out Foster Furcolo (for trying to keep Dean Bundy away from the New Frontier), John Briston Sullivan (for trying to bring him back), Pete Seeger '40, Lyndon Baines Johnson, James Reston, Howie Phillips '62, Ted Kennedy '54, Caldwell Titcomb '47, LeCorbusier, Bob Hope, and perhaps Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., rumored candidate for Massachusetts Governor in 1962.