The depression continued to affect the life and the practical concerns of the students. Room rents went down and scholarships went up, but the general economic precariousness could not be winked at. The great question was whether the University's "emergency jobs" would be kept going in the face of unemployment; but as more students relied on these jobs, they were extended and kept available.
The end of the Junior year saw David Weld hand over the presidency of the CRIMSON to J.J. Thorndike, Jr. Other important class posts were held by R. G. Ames, president of the Student Council; Robert Breckenridge, president of the Harvard Dramatic Club; and Gordon C. Streeter, head of Phillips Brooks House. John H. Dean, who had been president of the Junior Class, was the football captain, and subsequently was elected First Marshal of the class, the Second Marshal being Ames.
Battle of the Beer
The Class of 1934 weathered the depression during college; faced the Second World War shortly afterward; came home to mold their lives during the cold war; and finally, survived the ravages of the Program for Harvard College. But their most crucial battle of all, one whose experience undoubtedly drew them nearer to one another and enabled them to face these later crises, was the fight for beer in the dining halls, a campaign which exercised the College throughout their last two yeasr. Polls were taken to whether a glass of 3.2 beer would "put you under the table" at dinner time, and so forth. With the administration prudently handling this potentially explosive situation gingerly, the College voted over-whelmingly to allow "non-intoxicating" alcoholic beverages with meals, and a one hundred year dry spell at Harvard was jubilantly broken.
The fall of Senior year was, as usual, more concerned publicly with the gridiron than with anything else. Another only-average football season was transformed into something rich and strange, as only a Yale game victory can do it. The frighteningly large role of football in the athletic budget began to be ominous as the H.A.A. funds were slashed again, leaving all but two minor sports out in the cold. The undergraduates, with their peculiarly myopic sense of justice, protested the withdrawal of support simultaneously with their-continued annoyance at the high prices of football tickets.
University Problems
Even the University found trouble balancing the books, and debated asking for federal aid, a problem which has come up again more recently. The tutorial system was re-examined and intensified, and the House were fruitful topics for sustained interest in trivial problems, notably the subject of inter-House dining. House sports grew in organization, participation, and earnestness, and began to suggest an alternative to the looming professionalism of big-time football. Meanwhile, football relations with Princeton were renewed.
Several famed Harvard personalities shared the limelight of '34,s last year. "Copey" moved out of the Yard (for reasons of health, not noise, as originally suspected). The beloved Dean Briggs died toward the end of the year, and President Eliot was eulogized in a Centenary observance in his honor. Guest personalities in Cambridge included Walter Lippmann '10, who delivered the Godkin lectures, and Alistaire Cooke, imported to direct the Hasty Pudding show, entitled "Hades! The Ladies!"
The Fascist Threat
Behind the frivolity of abortive riots and half-hearted football rallies, the final year in college revealed a growing tension between fear of war and growing suspicion of the fascist regimes. On the one hand, the National Student's League tried to organize a general walkout on classes by students and professors to protest against the trend toward war. On the other hand, the dictatorships were watched, discussed, and often dismissed lightly as misguided, at worst. Professors, one by one, discounted the importance or durability of Hitler's regime. Articles by Mussolini, appearing in the CRIMSON, received little controversial attention. Only near the end of the year, with the incident of returning reunioner Ernst F.S. Hanfstaengl, did the issue begin to assume immediate importance in the College.
The Ivy Orator, John B. White, could still joke on Class Day about problems which were all too soon to pass well beyond the laughing stage. Depression or no, the college years were, for the Class of 1934, truly the halcyon days compared with what lay before. As White put it, "So sails the Ship of 1934 into the Sea of Life. We have spent many happy hours smashing bottles over thy prow, proud ship, even going so far as to remove the figurehead and install a bottle-opener." The bottle-smashing was over, and as President Conant handed out the 655 first diplomas of his career, the Class could well ponder the uncertain seas ahead.