To the Editors of the Crimson:

I hate to attack an old and, at least in some quarters, venerated Harvard institution. But I'm so fed up with the Lampoon that silence is no longer possible. The successive issues this term have degenerated from bad to intolerable. What should be the leading college humor magazine in the country is not even a creditable grade school publication.

Maybe I have no sense of humor (whatever that is), but I usually enjoy the same jokes and witticisms that other people laugh at. And in my opinion the most readable portion of the last Lampoon was the ads. A careful reading of the entire issue brought me not a single laugh, not even a gentle smile. Things have reached the point that I read the Lampoon with the same attitude with which I approach Cunningham's column--just to see what the fool has to say this time.

I wish space permitted me to quote the entire magazine here. That would be the most effective way of proving my point. The Christmas issue is a hodge-podge collection of tripe--cynically designed to startle Harvard by exposing the fact that there is no Santa Claus, a really novel idea. The Lampoon's dearth of ideas is demonstrated by their choice of material for the review column, "As Lampy Sees Them." They fall back on a pair of antique Fredrick March sagas, that no one is interested in, and write a review that is worse than the pictures something commonly thought impossible.

One prevalent theory to account for the lamentable level of Lampoon excrescence is that the stories are written in the early morning hours as an anticlimax to protracted wassailing, and that the only way to appreciate the humor of the magazine is to read it in the same inebriated state in which it is written. It is time for the Lampoon to decide if it is to be a magazine or a club; and if it chooses the latter, then step down and make way for a decent publication. Name withheld by request.