The Mail 'NOTHING VENTURED'

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Friday, February 8. WHRB sponsored a Kris Kristofferson concert at Sanders Theatre. When we arrived at 8:30 a note on the door advised us that the concert had been cancelled. The WHRB promoter downstairs explained that it had actually been cancelled a week earlier; publicity (posters) had been informal and not enough tickets were sold.

No doubt the Red Sox would play the Orioles even if only six people showed up. After all, when one sells a ticket, one promises a performance. Kristofferson, the promoter said, had not cancelled. The decision was an economic one, and dubious at best.

Yet even allowing this much, why had WHRB not at least informed the public of the week-old cancellation, notes on the door notwithstanding? Simple enough, according to the promoter-since the concert itself had been little publicized, why bother to publicize the cancellation? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

It makes a lot of sense. You rent a hall, schedule a concert, then fail to advertise it. When the failure to advertise succeeds and few tickets are sold, you off the concert and assume that the people who did buy tickets won't mind not knowing. After all, might they not have easily enough intuited that cancellation was imminent (nay inevitable) inasmuch as there had been no effort to sell tickets?

Felix Belardi

Larry Duberstein

Amanda Fairchild

Susan Fletcher

Gordon Pardee

Steve Shenker

Mav Valvo

COURTESY FOR SIORIS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Professor John Cooper and your editorialist Michael Ryan berate Harvard for entertaining the Greek Minister Nikitias Sioris as a guest. They are right about the character of the Greek regime. But as to the question of courtesy, a different principle is involved. Would they protest equally if the Soviet Minister of Education came as a guest? Yet the regime is equally repressive. What one should show is the open character of the American campus. That is the principle of freedom. Bring on the guests, and bring on the pickets, too. The latter have their rights. But keep an open campus.

EASY TO BE COLD

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Friday an event occurred which discouraged me a great deal. I would like to express my disillusionment not so much in hopes of change but in hopes of a clarification of philosophy.

Around 3 p.m. I was standing in front of the Coop with a friend when a boy reached into my pocketbook (an open canvas bag) and took my wallet. I saw him putting it into his coat and grabbed his arm telling him that I had no money or credit cards and would he please return the wallet. He replied "I don't have your mother-fucking wallet, lady." I told him I had seen him take it, whereupon he handed me a piece of paper which had been inside my wallet and said "Is this what you want, lady?" He then grabbed a friend and they started walking away toward Harvard Yard. I was not about to let him get away that easily with my wallet so I followed them while a friend of mine looked for a policeman.

During this scene there had been 10 or 12 people standing around us in front of the Coop looking on interestedly but not helping. This didn't really worry me too much at this time because the boys (about 16 years old) were headed for the Yard and I was certain that people there would help me. I chased them across the Yard, in tears of frustration by this time, calling for help. I was shouting. "That guy took my wallet. Will someone please help me?" It seems to me that a girl visibly crying in the Yard and calling for assistance should evoke some response. Not one person of the many who were walking through the Yard helped me, though it was fairly obvious that I was distressed and needed someone. I chased the boys all the way to Carpenter Center before somebody finally came to my aid, and it was someone from outside the University-an older man in a three-piece suit with his briefcase. We chased them well past the Center until one of them pulled out a knife saying we had better not follow and they disappeared.

The most upsetting factor about the episode was not that my wallet was stolen and not retrieved, but that not one person in Harvard Yard (and there were dozens, not just one or two) helped me. After I lost the boys and was returning to the Coop a guy stopped me in the Yard and said, "Hey, I saw you chasing these boys through the Yard and yelling. Did you ever get your wallet back?" I was appalled.

It seems to me that there has been much discussion among students today concerning involvement, relating, and relevancy. Friday's experience, for me, negates much of the faith I have had in the ideas of my own generation. The lack of response to my cries for help underlines a hypocritical attitude. What right have students to demand relevancy and involvement from the University or any other organization when they are not willing to respond on an individual basis? It is discouraging that the person who finally helped me was an obvious member of the Establishment we put down so frequently. I am not defending the "old order" but questioning the new ideology. Are we involved with ideas but not their practice and do we care about masses but ignore the individual?

Friday was a disillusioning time for me, but it has made me think. I hope this letter does likewise to those who read it.