RESTING peacefully in a tattered red book which lies in reverence and dust somewhere high up in the stacks of Widener are ten wistful and somewhat historical little words: "We earnestly request contributions from all members of the University."

This hopeful appeal for aid is buried in a mass of editorial trivia in Volume 1, Number 1 of an upstart literary magazine which first made its appearance in January, 1873, sporting the title of Magenta.

The ten original editors could not have known that their brainchild was destined to survive with incredible stamina an epidemic of wars, fierce competition, and depression, and to emerge as today's thriving enterprise which calls itself the Harvard CRIMSON.

If anything indications were that the biweekly 16-page collection of tid-bits and fiction would soon be a nostalgic memento, hung on the walls of its first home, a journalistically uninspiring room in Stoughton Hall. Five previous publications since 1810 had folded, and the Magenta began under the inauspicious attitude of the Dean of the College who "expressed strong disapproval" of the venture.

But the paper ignored the Dean, managed to survive, and when the College official changed its color in 1875, the Magenta followed suit and became the CRIMSON.

The early '80's were hard years financially for the young paper, and matters were not helped by the existence of other struggling journals. In addition to the Advocate, which by 1879 was a weekly like the CRIMSON, the first Harvard daily appeared in that year. The Echo was a rather inept production, and Mother Advocate summed that matter up when it stated: "It is hard to say which has been most acceptable to the Echo's readers, the vulgarity of its first year, in insipidity of its second, or the negligence of its third."

THE hour was ripe for another daily, and in 1882 the first issues of a vigorous new paper, the Harvard Journal, appeared. The CRIMSON and the Journal took an early liking to each other, and in 1883 the two merged as the Herald-Crimson, then later the Daily Crimson, and finally in 1891, simply the CRIMSON.

Sports news played a very large part in the CRIMSON of the Gay '90's. Detailed accounts of the daily football practice were invariably given top billing, and minor jugglings in the JV crew boatings rated detailed accounts. There was a lot of talk, even in the paper, about over-emphasis of athletics, but even so, the CRIMSON published a series in 1893 giving a recapitulation of Harvard's encounter with Yale in every major sport for the past five years.

Beginning in the early '90's, however, the social club aspects of the '80's, were giving way to a more serious concern with journalism.

Not that the editors entirely renounced their pleasant vices. The paper's office moved around a good bit in those days and wherever it went there was a sanctum, the center of exuberant conviviality. Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled years later the occasion of the transfer of quarters to the Union in 1891: "There was much fear that the new quarters would take away the esprit de corps which had grown up in the old sanctum, and also that no punch night could be held in the Union. Both fears have proved to be groundless."

But if good times remained, they co-existed with serious journalism. In the '90's the custom of publishing extras after football games was born. The first experiment was in 1892 on the day of the Harvard-Princeton baseball game. The newsboys were in the Square with complete results of the contest just four minutes and fifty-four seconds after the game.

The news columns and editorials of the middle years of the first decade of the new century displayed a curious mixture of the bromidic and the constructive. While there were many articles on such subjects as "Fresh Air in Classrooms," "Singing at the Games" and so on, there was a distinct trend to more valuable facts and opinions. The Crime took up the issue of brutality in football games, was responsible for the founding of the Student Council, and began an extensive series on educational policy.

Beginning with President Lowell's active administration in 1909, the CRIMSON began to dig itself out of several ruts. Action pictures began to appear, and the typographical format was livened up. Editorials ceased to plod along, and news copy was generally sharper.

But if editors had some reason to be satisfied with their product, they were not happy with their environment. By 1914 there was more than a little agitation for a private CRIMSON building. Undergraduate interest and graduate financing combined on the project project, and in 1915 the CRIMSON ceased its nomadic existence and settled down at 14 Plympton Street, never to unsettle again.

After Christmas vacation in 1918, the paper was once again on a daily schedule, and the CRIMSON soon began to regain former health. In 1919, the paper bought the 20 year-old Harvard Illustrated, a pictorial journel and thenceforth published a bi- weekly photographic supplement. The next year, the progressive board also purchased a new press which made the addition of a fifth coulmn of news possible.