During the spring the college atmosphere was explosive: Wilson died, the Teapot Dome scandal broke, and Copeland returned. The military admitted that you didn't have to take Military Science to play polo. Scared by the huge class of '27 the University decided early in March to limit the next year's freshman class to 1,000 men.
Wishing to show that it had acquired the necessary Harvard indifference, only 60 percent of the class bothered to vote for the Class Officers. However they managed to elect Leo F. Daley, president; Clement C. Coady, vice-president; John R. Burke, secretary-treasurer; and Isadore Zarakov, Student Council Representative. The '26 class officers thought-fully gave their successors a book of instructions.
A few weeks later Nathaniel Hamlen was appointed chairman of the Jubilee Committee; Bayard L. Kilgour, Jr., chairman of the Smoker Committee; and Austin Lamont, editor-in-chief of the Red Book.
On March 20, a throng packed Sanders Theatre celebrated the 90th birthday of President-emeritus Charles W. Eliot. Few freshmen saw him there; most caught a glimpse at the outdoor ceremonies in front of University Hall.
Just before the spring vacation Massachusetts Hall almost went up in smoke--and did to the tune of $5,000.
Russell vs. Lowell
After the holidays, intellectual fires blazed. Debates on socialism and the Harvard Democratic Club emerged. Bertrand Russell's talk on Harvard's "Intellectual Quarantine" brought a sharp counter from Lowell who denied that trustees were a great misfortune to universities. Undergraduates packed the Union to hear Russell a second time. "America is not ruled-by the Washington government," he said, "it is oil and Morgan that rule you." Meanwhile, the rise of fundamentalism brought a deluge of religious speakers to the college.
Stingy was what the seniors called the freshmen when the latter only tossed $159 into the sheet. The freshman and senior pictures are taken on the same day and traditionally the seniors don cap and gown to beg the price of their pictures from the Yearlings. This time the gift was snubbed. Two freshmen partially retrieved the class' fallen honor by contributing $5 apiece.
Three sport athlete Zarakov led the freshman baseball team to a successful nine win and five loss season. The Booth-Dutchin battery helped trip the confident Elis, 5 to 4. The tennis squad led the field--going in the Yale game undefeated. Freshman lacrosse and track had mediocre seasons--both being swamped by Yale. Gore Hall was overall interdormitory sport champion.
Jubilee and the Pops went by and exams came. Some freshmen stayed around to see the Olympic track tryouts in the Stadium, where five world records were broken, and to watch the baseball team and crew loose to Yale, but most left for home when their exams were over. And when he walked through Johnston Gate the confident man from '27 looked superciliously at the new freshman crop scurrying around.
The summary of the Class of 1927 will be continued in the next two issues.