Just after the election a group of Harvard's young liberals had a bull-session on the probable causes and effects of Truman's victory, and they invited Associate Professor Louis Hartz to join the discussion. Unfortunately Hartz did not join the discussion very much, chiefly because he was more polite than most of the undergraduates present. He therefore did not stick his two bits in while whoever was speaking took a second off to inhale after a comma, which is what everybody else did whenever Hartz was speaking.

For somebody such as myself, who didn't have any ideas about the election and wanted to know what Louis Hartz had to say, it was a frustrating experience to hear him get to some crucial syllable and then to lose him in a mass of interruptions by the young liberals, who didn't have any more ideas than I did, but being young liberals, felt inspired to express themselves. So it was a sort of delayed intellectual fulfillment to hear Hartz speak about the elections, along with Louis Bean, on Monday evening. He spoke from the lecture platform of Emerson D, and there was no kibitzing.

As always with Hartz, both the style and the substance were brilliant. But since I'm a little short on space today, let me skip the substance--there's nothing so dull as a synopsis anyway--and talk about Hartz's manner of speaking.

When he speaks, he seems to be in agony of intensity. First his fist presses the table until he almost puts his entire weight on it; later his fingers grasp air with tenseness and tautness--early with violence. These mannerisms aren't superficial. They come out of a terrific absorption in ideas. They come out of an effort to express those ideas clearly, completely, and precisely. And Hartz is so successful in this effort that his audience laughs, not because what he says is funny, but because it is so perfectly right. The laughter comes form aesthetic satisfaction and if you don't believe it, go and find out for yourself. Hartz can be heard at 10 a.m. in Harvard Hall Tuesdays and Thursdays. And Saturdays, to the pleasure of the student.