To the Editors of the Crimson:

In view of several things which have lately appeared in print concerning the work of newspaper correspondents at Harvard, I wish to make use of your columns for an explanation.

I shall consider first the article which appeared in the last Graduates' Magazine, under the heading of "A New Kind of Disloyalty." I must protest emphatically against the spirit in which that was written. The writer, under cover of the name of a department, directs a savage attack against persons about whom he evidently knows nothing, except possibly by hearsay, and about whom he never will know anything until he leaves the window-seat which he is supposed to occupy, and comes down to the ground of common-sense. In the first place, by no means all of the Boston papers pay their correspondents by space-rates. I can mention two notable exceptions, the Advertiser and the Herald. In this way at least a good part of the writer's argument falls flat: the correspondents of these papers can have no incentive for "padding." In the next place, I know that there is not a single Harvard correspondent who is not loyal to his university-and more loyal than those carping critics who tear out imaginary gray hairs over the result, instead of seeking to apply a remedy at the ultimate cause the foolish and lawless spirit which some undergraduates are always bound to show on the occasion of an athletic victory. One might as well blame a man or a newspaper for reporting the account of the Bram murder trial; since this was such a terrible murder and such a disgrace to civilization, why not suppress everything about it? Why not suppress some of the scandalous debates of the U. S. Senate or the House? Surely these debates are a discredit to the nation, and whoever reports them is, according to the standard of the writer in the Graduates' Magazine, "plying a shameless trade," and is disloyal to his country. I can say why it is not best to suppress them: it is because a good tempering influence is exerted by these very reports.

I will admit as soon as any one that some vile stories greatly to the discredit of Aarvard have appeared in the papers, but I am absolutely sure that no Harvard man would lie about his college. The motto "Veritas," behind which the writer in the Graduates' Magazine would hide, is as dear to the student correspondent as to any other undergraduate, or to any graduate; and has, I contend, been as well upheld.

Lastly, I wish to correct some impressions which the readers of the CRIMSON of March 9 would get. As a matter of history, let me first state that on the occasion of the so-called "riot" of last June, several sensational reports appeared in the Boston papers. As a result, the correspondents of the Post and of the Advertiser and Record were excluded from the CRIMSON office. I know not whether the Harvard correspondent of the Post wrote the account in that paper, but I do know that I, who am the Harvard correspondent of the Advertiser and Record, did not write a line of the accounts published in those two papers-notwithstanding the insinuation to the contrary in the CRIMSON. Furthermore, as I can easily prove, the two papers which I represent had much the mildest account of all the Boston papers. The only thing printed in the Advertiser that one could take exception to was a statement to the effect that President Eliot addressed the students-a mistake made without the least suspicion of malice. To supplement all this I can furnish sufficient evidence to the effect that the reporter detailed to do the work of reporting the matter was specially instructed to write up as mild an account as possible. So much, then, for the past.

The correspondence of the Post has since changed hands, the place being held by an editor of the CRIMSON. Since the correspondent of the Post is now allowed the privileges of the CRIMSON office, and incidentally, it seems, the distinction of being on one of the "best Boston papers," the correspondent of the Advertiser and Record is the only man outside the office. On the face of it, then, the attack made in the CRIMSON would seem pretty clearly to fall on me, or at least on me particularly. Against this I protest emphatically. I will match my spirit of loyalty to Harvard against that of any Harvard man, the writer in the CRIMSON included. I deprecate the evil which exists in the papers now just as much as the CRIMSON, but I assert that I have not been the cause of that evil in any way. On the other hand, I could enumerate several articles written by me in which the spirit of loyalty has been in evidence enough to please the most enthusiastically loyal Harvard man.

CLARENCE ALAN MCGREW.March 9, 1897.