Band Restraint

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Your distressing account of Monday last, "Band's New Guidelines to Cut Vulgarity and in Jokes," has arrived on this distant shore. As one of the aging alumni putatively beneficiaries of the Dean's intrusion into the domain of free expression--and as one who two decades ago played in Schneider's Band and formulated a show routine or two, when not otherwise pulling oars--let me urge the Dean's restraint on prior restraint.

We have been on this course before. After some of our efforts in the early 1960s. Dean Watson asked the H.A.A. to censor our creativity; presumably the good dean found the task too repugnant to his own sensibilities. After some impasse the reviewing task passed from 60 Boylston Street headquarters to the field house: Jimmy Cuniff, who handed out the sweats and towels at Dillon, liked our stuff real good. I believe our generation and its alumni survived.

Indeed, a glance at out Twentieth Anniversary report reveals the respected careers since followed by the principal perpetrators of our class: a brilliant medical researcher, not surprisingly several professors of English--and as for the most creative and irreverent participant, he has served with great distinction on the Harvard faculty. I shall refrain from according this college roommate direct and deserving recognition, lest his tenure be in jeopardy by Cromwellian forces in University 4.

Now we did practice restraint. We did not knowingly once spelt out the F word in four years of intercollegiate performance. Phallic symbols did not appear with regularity or rigidity (due mainly to the Brand's inability to perform any evolution with the requisite precision). Thus the instant reports of "puke" [I believe "barf" was once the word of choice] and commentary on Flight 007 or Marines in Lebanon hardly offend our generation.

Let me recite two examples to provide the Dean with a sense of historical perspective. In 1960 a scandal broke in New Haven concerning a high school student, known only as "Suzie," who catered to the needs of the flesh of the students at the local university. The Yalies were ultimately apprehended under the statutory charge of "lascivious carriage." Accordingly, at The Game that year, the band formed a rickshaw, which the announcer explained as "a rickshaw, otherwise known as a lascivious carriage, to commemmorate 'The World of Suzie Wong', who opened in New Haven this year." The Band then played "If You knew Suzie."

The mood was more somber at the 1962 Dartmouth game. President Kennedy had announced his blockade of Cuba a few days before: the Russians had not yet responded. More than a few of us wondered if we were watching our last football game. The Band's reaction: to announce that President Pusey had declared a quarantine at the Harvard goal line, instructing that any Dartmouth player with an offensive weapon be forcibly seized. In probably the most dangerous week of the world's history, we had our first laugh--at the Commander in Chief's expense.

What does this show? That college humor, whose seminal form is the Harvard Band, serves a larger purpose than gratification of the perpetrators. The Hand proved that come what may on the gridiron. Harvard would cream the opposition at halftime. In a prosaic era of social pussyfooting and dingdong mentalities elsewhere the Band reminded us that Harvard was hard on the course of intellectual rigor. The Band even occasionally pricked our social conscience, but always our senses of tolerance and humor. Should the academic authorities to dickering here? I rather prefer your reported response of the Band's senior member, our Mom Alice let the Band run the Band. Respectfully yours,   Antonio Rosamann '63. J.D. '71   Professor of Law