The new cover of crimson and the format innovations which appeared in its December 1 issue ushered in a more aggressive Harvard Alumni Bulletin, which now not only presents a weekly cross section of alumni and undergraduate activities, but also reflects in its editorials and signed articles a greater awareness of world problems.

Under the leadership of John D. Merrill, who served as editor until his death on January 9, the Bulletin was submitted to a drastic streamlining. A new cover designed by David T. Pottinger '06, associate director of the Harvard University Press, larger type, new head-lines, and more photographs were some of the changes.

New Book Column

Acting Editor David McCord '21 continued the transformation, beginning several new features. In its February 2 issue, The Bulletin began the "Harvard Book of the Month" column, reviewing each month one "outstanding book by or about a Harvard man, or about a Harvard subject."

The latest feature to be added is "The College Pump" which first appeared in the March 8 issue as a column "for the stray line of Harvard verse, the pleasant non-sequitur of academic observation, and the simple fragment of phrase."

Protests American indifference

Most indicative of the changes in the Bulletin is its new editorial policy for more objective thinking, both at Harvard and in the country at large, about war issues. Typical of its attitude towards the present European War, the Bulletin endorsed and printed in full in its April 12 issue an address delivered by John Lord O'Brien '96 before the New York Bar Association, protesting the apparent American indifference to the war issues.

"confronted with the spectacle of a war waged against all traditional forms of religion, and with a resurgence of brutal oppression and calculated horror to an extent unknown for centuries," O'Brien said, "some of us have become seriously disturbed by the activities of those leaders of public opinion who in increasing numbers are urging that these matters are no concern of the Americans, that expression of resentment are both futile and dangerous, and that any widespread discussion of these happenings might lead to dangerous states of emotion."

Hitting at the belief of many college students that "America was carried into the last war chiefly by the machinations of selfish business men and the hysteria of a superficial emotion," O'Brien said, "The way to secure peace and make it a lasting peace is to face frankly and to discuss freely disagreeable and tragic realities.

Not In Interventionist

O'Brien insisted, as have editors of the Alumni Bulletin, that they are not advocating intervention. "Most, if not all, of us approve the action of our government in withdrawing our ships from war zones abroad and of preventing our citizens from exposing themselves to the same dangers.

"But our moral frontiers are another matter. They must never be withdrawn and we must never appear to acquiesce in the action of those brutal powers which have brought much inhumanity into the civilized world."

Alumni reaction to this and similar articles in the Bulletin has split pretty much along age groups. Most of the letters which The Bulletin has received approving the editorial policy have been from members of classes before 1930, which most of the disapproval had come from younger Alumni.

Not Enough Social Research

"On the other hand, our universities and industries probably employed less than $5,000,000 in research funds to study the effect of rapid change on men and on human society or to discover how men in industry and agriculture can successfully adjust themselves to change."