The larger paper was indicative, what the Crime lacked in quality, it up quantity. On the day of the Yale game in 1921, for instance, editors spewed forth a 16 page morning edition, a 40-page pictorial supplement, a four-page post-game extra, and 45,000 song programs, which is a world's record for something or other.

THE 1923 staff woke up one morning- it had ever gone to bed--to find that paper had survived for fifty years and peared inordinately healthy. The New York Evening Post called the Crime "a fine and high-grade expression of the best student sentiment," while Mother Advocate, thinking back to the days when the paper was an upstart literary magazine, observed, "If child is father to the man, the two are often strangely dissimilar."

The CRIMSON entered its second half- century on a wave of activity and change that was sweeping the whole College. The changes and advances were clearly mirrored in the paper's pages; each year of '20 brought forth new and forthright editor's viewpoints, while news coverage and photography advanced steadily in scope and volume.

By 1925, the CRIMSON's relations with the Faculty had become overly cordial, and the paper showed signs of becoming a sort of independent house-organ. To remedy situation, the Confidential Guide To Freshmen Courses was born, which left some professors less than enthusiastic about freedom of the collegiate press.

Linotyping in the '20's was under the capable mismanagement of Dick Dyer, and credit goes to him for the worst "pruf haks" (proof reading errors) of the decade. On one ocassion Dyer, offended by the euphonics of Agmemnon's name, proceeded to altar it to "Agoddammit."

More seriously, the CRIMSON was for the first time overtly criticizing a University administration. The University's anti- theatre policy had resulted in the closing of the Workshop and the resignation of Professors Baker to Yale. With the demise of Workshop, the CRIMSON made its first of seven attacks on President Lowell's regime.

BUT the big guns were saved for the announcement of President Lowell plan. For some reason or other, previous board had sponsored the plan, the 1928 board was vehemently opposed. Even after the Houses were built, the CRIMSON bore malice to the system, and looked with democratic indignation at the "aristocratic tendencies" of Lowell House high table. In the early morning of 1932, when almost all the House units were already under way, the CRIMSON ridiculed the fad for House colors and emblems, and sarcastically foresaw "heraldic rabbits cavorting on Leverett pajamas."

In 1932, the Depression hit Plympton street hard, and the paper could not meet mortgage payments, much less pay its normal expenses. Papers were small, advertisements few and far between, although headlines were met, even at the personal exoense of editors.

Even in the middle of economic crisis, however, Crimeds managed to disagree among themselves so violently that eleven top-notch editors resigned to launch a new daily, the Harvard Journal. Another battle, reminiscent of the almost forgotten News skirmish, was on.

What was left of the CRIMSON rallied around to wage a battle to the death with the rebel editors. The "100 Days War" ended by June, when the Journal editors had had it, financially and academically, and the Crime emerged victorious but not unchanged. The presence of a vigorous competitor had forced the CRIMSON to become a far more modern and readable paper that it had been before the schism.

While the CRIMSON had numerous advantage several disadvantages in the war with the Journal, the real hero was Arthur Hopkins. From 1929 right up to the present, chief linotypist Art has been the hero of the nightly "Battle of the Bilge." It was he who guided the inexperienced editors through the 100 Days War, and it was Art who again recued the CRIMSON during the Second World War.

Following the defeat of the Journal in the 30's, the Crime's next major opponent was the commercialtutoring schools. In 1939, when its conscience would have been hurt more by complacency than its pocketbook was injured by courage, the paper rejected advertising from what it called the "intellectual brothels" and began a crusade which saw their within a year.

The paper emerged from battle flushed with victory and financially, very, very able. Red ink a thing of the past.

By 1943 the Crimson was fat and sassy, and the 70th anniversary was an occasion of unstinted self-congratulation. The president of the United States took time out to write; "As an old CRIMSON man...I am sure that I voice the sentiments of all of that company of happy men when I say that none of them would exchange his Crimson training for any other experience or association of his college days..."

There was little for that company of happy men to be happy about, however, as the undermanned staff found publication a terrific struggle during the early years of the war. The suspension of the paper on May 27, 1943 had appeared inevitable for quite a while.