Art Hopkins: The Rough, Rugged Ritual

The Freshman asks:

Does it pay to have one's name adorn the masthead of the Crimson? The answer is an emphatic NO!

We often see a (usually elderly) man's name listed in the Alumni Bulletin as being president of this company, vice-president of that company, member of the board here, and director of the corporation there. Under this listing is a short account of just what this man does during the year. We find that he follows the sun to Palm Beach during the winter months, follows the sun to Pine Valley during the spring months, follows the shade to Camden, Maine, during the summer months, and follows the tourist guides in Europe during the cool months of autumn, And he always has. Does it pay this man to have his name adorn the divers mastheads of so many different companies? Certainly! He collects five dollars here, one thousand dollars there, fifty thousand dollars for the privilege of lending his rubber-stamped cognomen to the men who actually do his work, and glories in the title of The Old Man (pronounced in a hushed voice). But what has he ever done? He has inherited MONEY! Is he content? No.

To have one's name on the Crimson masthead is an entirely different thing. One might possibly collect five dollars on that account, but the larger sums of hard cash are just not there. So financially it does not pay to belong to the Crime. Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, the employees of The Greatest Show on Earth, from John Ringling North down to the lowliest water carrier, have a saying that they "are with it." This phrase means exactly what it says--that they are with it--and very proud they are indeed to be with it. Mr. North feels that he works just as hard as the water carrier does, and the water carrier feels that he works just as hard as The Old Man (voice not hushed); both and all to the same end: to keep their pride and joy worthy of being called The Greatest Show on Earth. And so it is with the Breakfast Daily. Just to have one's name on the list of editors is a fraud and a delusion. A long column of neatly printed names means nothing if all our members are only dead wood to be thrown into our beautiful dingy fireplace. However, if you are with it, the Crimson does pay, and emphatically!

One will never become a rich man by being an editor. To be sure, many contacts are made here in our ivy-covered building which pay off in dollars later in life, but on the whole a nose for news does not usually ferret out huge bundles of boodle. Here we should give pause and consider whether we wish to become one who can sign his name to checks for unlimited amounts just for his own amusement or one who must sign his name to checks that will keep his company the best of its kind, large or small. It's the old story of the cicada who sings all summer and the ant who works all summer. The same old corn we have all heard during our childhood. But the old corn is true to life and the reason for the "moral" with which Aesop ended all his fables. There is a great deal more satisfaction in actually doing something than there is in just admiring something someone else has done. Everyone has heard of Rembrandt, but who knows or cares about John Jones, who spends crates of crud to cross the ocean and gaze uncomprehendingly at his pictures?

This is the age of the do-it-yourself man. Nearly everyone has at some time felt the urge to build or create something, whether it be a tall building laid brick by brick until it towers into the sky or just a rhetorical fantasy towering word by word into the infinite majesty of the columns of a daily newspaper. Both the brick structure and the word structure are equally important. If we had no building there would be no place to lay out typewriter, and if we had no typewriter there would be no need for the office building. So we surround ourselves with expensive bricklaying tools or machinery with which to transpose our thoughts into solid, soul-satisfying, black-on-white print and go to it. To our dismay, we find that our initial endeavors are not what we hoped them to be. Our bricks are laid slightly askew, or our words do not seem to express just what we had intended them to portray. So-o-o, we call in an experienced mason, who, by applying a T-square, straightens up our building, or on the other hand we refer to our night editor, who, by using know-how, shifts our words around until our original ideas suddenly blaze forth clearly and distinctly.

This is a very tantalizing procedure, though. Why in the name of the Seven Shahs should we have to call in someone to finish what we expressly desired to do all by ourselves? Was the master mason born with a T-square dangling at his side instead of an arm? Was the night editor born with a Rules of Rhetoric under his caul? Of course not. It is just the old process of try, try again or if at first you don't succeed, stay with it. We of the Crimson have one great advantage over the man who tries construction work. We are all Harvard men, which means that we all have nearly the same training. As A. Lincoln might have said, "All Freshmen are created equal." And so let's get mad about the whole thing, or, as a College man would put it. "I am quite sure that my mental processes are quite as functional as those emanating from the cerebrum of the night editor."

We are now becoming really interested in journalism. We are going to show our contemporaries that we are at least as bright as they are, and perhaps.... During the process we discover to our amazement that our sentences are now taking shape all by themselves and that the typewriter keys seem to depress themselves almost without manual manipulation. We have arrived! We are now Editors! But there are many different kinds of editors. Some are poor editors; some are good editors; some are very good editors; and some have a talent for the business. But even the talented came up the hard way--word-brick by word-brick--until they were eventually able to combine their God-given talent with plain hard work to reach a most enviable position. This all sounds like rough, rugged ritual--and it is just that.

A man who instinctively dislikes rough, rugged ritual should never attempt to become a writer--or anything else. In all walks of life we read of the topmost men in this country, or any country, whose proudest boast is that they "came up the hard way"--through their dogged study and application of the three r's--and they don't mean just reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Anything worth while is worth fighting for and if we lack intestinal fortitude we had better resign ourselves to sitting in Widener and admiring the derring-do of such giants as King Arthur, Walter Lippmann, and Mother Goose.

What do we actually get out of all this hard daily, weekly, monthly grind? We get a casual reference while candidates to the fact that we are "trying for the Crimson:" we get a slightly less casual reference while editors to the fact that we are "with the Crime." If, by applying ourselves, we rise to an official position on our paper, we get a reference (not casual) to the fact that we "are trying to run the College: just who do they think they are!" Finally, if by combining talent and hard work we become the top men on our sheet, we get paid off by a mixture of patronage, not untinged with envy: "I don't agree with everything he writes, but in this particular case the guy's really get something." Mr. Hammarskjold, Mr. Eisenhower. Mr. Dulles, and Mr. Yovicsin receive their salaries in the same kind of coin. We all criticize them (from the safe purlieus of the Hayes-Bick) and preach of what we would de in their brain-puzzling jobs. But they are the men with guts enough to try. If they succeed in then chosen work they become heroes; if they fan they are forgotten overnight. But at least they have done their very best. By the way, just who was LIOYC. Jordan's predecessor? In order to find out if it pays to belong to the College Daily we must read between the lines. Another arduous task'.

Yes, little Veritas, it does pay to have one's game adorn the masthead of the Crimson. But only if you are with it. Or don't you agree."