SDS made headlines last spring when Defense Secretary McNamara emerged from Quincy House to find some 800 demonstrators and onlookers blocking his way. Ultimately McNamara was forced to escape through the Leverett tunnel to the Central Kitchens. Harvard apologized officially for the incident, and so did a substantial part of the student body in a petition, but for SDS it was a major achievement to have confronted one of the chief symbols of the Vietnam War.
Actually, most of SDS's work is done indoors, and is far less dramatic. Regular members have come to expect the same bureaucratic problems that beset Harvard's less radical organizations, and the group's meetings are often long and fruitless.
The real decision-making is accomplished largely within a number of overlapping committees -- sometimes set up to deal with temporary problems -- and by the elected executive board. Although affiliated with national SDS, the Harvard chapter, like its counterparts at most schools, runs its own show. Last year, again like branches across the country, Harvard SDS showed signs of becoming increasingly radical.
The Ten Per Cent
Most students go through Harvard without knowing much about final clubs, and what they do know is usually inaccurate. The 11 clubs, whose combined membership comprise about 10 per cent of the college, vary widely in their attitudes and isolation from the rest of Harvard. Not all, or even a majority of club members, are snobby in the least. And then again, some are the most pompous, close-minded people you'll ever see.
The fact that membership invitations operate on a blackball election system ensures that discrimination will exist (only one club has ever had a Negro member). Anywhere from one to three blackballs (i.e., negative votes) will require a club to reconsider the case for electing a "punchee," and four blackballs definitely seals his fate.
A club of 50 may have 15 or 20 active members on a regular basis. These are the students who look to the club for security, or shelter, or brotherhood, or whatever it is that the College does not seem to provide. They take the final club seriously and center their undergraduate lives around it.
The others, who make occasional use of the building and include a variety of interesting upper middleclass students, usually consider the final club worthwhile despite the dues. The simple truth is, however, that the clubs belong to a different Harvard era, and they are barely changing at a time when the College's student body has changed significantly in just a few years. The clubs must either open up their membership more, or else withdraw further than they are at the present.
There is a maxim that the amount of gambling in a club is an inverse variation to its prestige. The Bat Club is known to be the gambling club, closely challenged by the Iroquois; the D.U. Club the least exclusive (among whites, that is); the A.D. Club and Fly Club good, but containing some ugly rich folk; the Porcellian Club the most prestigious, wealthy, and socially acceptable in Boston; the Spee Club and its Fred Roloff the most interesting and broad, but also sprinkled with dullards; the Owl Club the nest of Eastern preppies and athletes; the Phoenix Club, the Delphic Club, and the Fox Club not worth talking about except over drinks.
Lampoon--Although it is classified as some sort of tax-exempt museum, the Lampoon is as much of a final club as any one of the 11. It is a farce to think of it as anything else. The Poon uses the blackball system for elections, monthly dues are $15, and the Big Fun comes at the Thursday night dinners in the Castle, where the food-throwing might match that of the Three Stooges. Candidates seeking election must endure a hellish "Fool's Week," which in tedium can outdo any small college fraternity.
As a humor magazine, the Lampoon is embarrassing and not even comparable with the ones at Texas or Stanford. The members make a lot of money for their organization by devising clever parodies; their contacts in the publishing world don't hurt either. They are sharp people who answer a need remote to the times. Undoubtedly, the Poonies have a great time, and some of them are among the best, most amusing undergraduates to be found at Harvard. They deserve the right to become a final club and to quit worrying about publishing a quarterly rag sheet.
The Achievers
The most competitive, most introspective, and most productive undergraduate organizations are the Achievers. They have strict, formal hierarchies of power, and often members of these organizations are looking towards a career in a related activity. They take themselves extremely seriously and expect everyone else to do so, also.
Harvard Dramatic Club--In recent year the quality and quantity of House theatrical productions has declined, leaving the huge Harvard