Many of these articles and stories reappear from decade to decade in Advocate anthologies, which are designed, of course, to pluck the purse-strings of old grads. Occasionally in the past graduates have been asked to contribute to Graduate Issues. One of these contained such gems as "Sitting A Little Apprehensively on the World" by Bernard De Voto, "All, All Wasted" by Conrad Aiken, and "Fools Trespass When Angels Keep Off the Grass," by Thomas W. Slocum.
Advocate alumni have found time, however, to do more in a literary way than the titles above would indicate. Among their ranks are not only Eliot, Aiken, and DeVoto, but George Lyman Kittredge, Charles Townsend Copeland, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Wallace Stevens, Van Wyck Brooks, e.e. cummings, Robert Hillyer, Malcolm Cowley, and James Laughlin. In the dramatic line, John Mason Brown, Lincoln Kirstein, and Leonard Bernstein were Advocateers. A few have even become political luminaries: Teddy and F.D. Roosevelt, as well as A.M. Schlesinger, Jr. Such a list is certainly a telling justification for the Advocate's existence. That the alumni themselves feel that they owe much to the magazine is proven by their continued allegiance to it throughout the years, an allegiance recently manifested in the Advocate's announcement of plans for a new building to be financed almost entirely through alumni aid.
Whether all this alumni concern for the Advocate's new building is justifiable is open to question. Advocate buildings--there have been a number--have varied from one extreme in elegance to another in shabbiness, but the end result after a few years has always been chaos. At first the editors spent most of their time in their rooms, but in 1894 they found a home in an apartment on Church Street. Several more moves did not really better the Advocate's situation, but finally after a hard pull through the Great War, it moved into its first real home, a plain, old fashioned house at 24 Holyoke, known to tradition as the home of the first president of the University. Then, after a short period on Dunster Street, it moved to its present home on Bow Street.
The Advocate was, of course, unable to maintain the splendor of the early thirties for very long. Soon letters were being sent to all alumni to aid in paying off a mortgage. This drive did not meet with the best of success, and, as a result, the Advocate was forced to allow the presence of Benny Jacobson below it and The Bat Club above. This situation is not really the Scylla and Charybdis that it would seem: The Gold Coast keeps quite, and the Bats only make curious thumping noises.
Although the Advocate's quarters have been hard to keep in order, maintenance expenses have probably not figured to any great extent in the magazine's frequently hazardous financial situation. Since new buildings inevitably stimulate extravagant parties, however, it might be said that the Advocate's buildings have indirectly caused its downfall. Parties, at any rate, have been extravagant, and the most sumptuous ones have always been the Decennial dinners. The first one, held in 1876, and called afterwards the "great" dinner, was said to be "almost oppressive in its grandeur." Staged at the Parker House, it took three years to pay for.
It was at this first Decennial dinner that Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the honored guests, read a poem patterned after "The One-Horse Shay," and entitled "How the Old Horse Won the Bet.' This poem was not one of Holmes' masterpieces, but the board felt it was certainly worth publishing and sent their best material-monger, Everett Hale, around to see Holmes the next morning.
"Can't Find It"
Sources disagree as to Holmes' reaction to the request. One story has it that he said, "Young gentlemen, that poem might do to read before your board, but I hardly think it worthy of a place in your columns." A member of the board at the time, however, recalls that he merely muttered, "Can't find it. Can't find it," and rushed off down the street. At any rate, the board was somewhat dismayed to read this same poem two months later in the Atlantic.
The Advocate has always prided itself on its celebrity parties, but the presence of its noted guests (Ann Sheridan, Elizabeth Taylor, Gertrude Stein, and the Ballet Russe) has not prevented many of them from becoming quite wild. At parties for T.S. Eliot, of course, decorum has always prevailed, the atmosphere being more sentimental than sensual. But there was an entirely different air about the Elizabeth Taylor party. And the Dylan Thomas party was notable for the number of people who were thrown downstairs.
The annual banquets have been so primitive that every eatery in the area, except Chez Dreyfus, now refuses to extend its services to the Advocate. Since the damage at Chez Dreyfus last year was pretty severe (one member stuck his fork into the wall up to the handle), it is probably just as well that the magazine is getting a new building. There soon will be no other place available for annual banquets.
Although Mother Advocate is aging, and during the war sickened almost unto death, she has apparently recovered, and with each year, despite her retiring air, has become more vital. An evidence of this is in the Advocate readings, which feature undergraduates and other promising but unrecognized writers. Further, its contributors are re-publishing with the Atlantic and other magazines, as well as with general publishers, more each year.
One in Three a Poet
Critics may point out that this vitality is largely a matter of contribution from the Harvard community in general, not an achievement of the Advocate as an organization. There is some truth in this attitude. Much of the credit must go to a University in which, as Donald Hall says, "One student in three, if pressed, will admit that he is a poet." Perhaps more miraculous, however, and equally important, is that there are enough interested readers about to support an exclusively literary magazine, especially one filled solely by undergraduate pieces.
Despite the major role played by its contributors and subscribers, however, the work of the Advocate boards is, if passive, at least not always easy. The main problem faced by the board is the gathering of material, for, if many write, few are anxious to submit, in the fear of being published abortively. Another problem is the board's democratic process in selecting material; the criticism provided by many viewpoints is perhaps helpful in making an intelligent selection of stories and poems, but it has had the adverse effect of preventing the Advocate from adopting any policy whatever. Carping criticism has at times even deterred the writing of book reviews, most members of the board not feeling it worth their while to write a review which would inevitably be rejected. This, at any rate, has been their excuse.
Lately, however, book reviews, and even one editorial, have appeared, giving further proof of an Advocate renaissance. A symbol of this growth and energy is its new building, being built on a combination of tradition (the purses of alumni) and enterprise (undergraduate wheedling). The building may well represent the end of a period of prolonged post-war anemia. Hopefully, the Advocate's reawakened spirits will further the arts as much as conviviality