Conclusion: Profile of a parasite.

As much as one can tell from the available autobiographies, Harvard '21 does not seem all that different politically from most Harvard classes, at least until recent years. There are some who shout approval for Agnew and hatred for long-haired "liberals," but most of those who state political beliefs state progressive ones.

Certainly most of Harvard '71 would have little trouble talking with an alumnus such as Eliot Hirshberg whose "pet political aversion is Richard Nixon, followed closely by his friend, John Mitchell." Or Robert Conrod, who wrote: "I loathe and strongly regret the Vietnam War as immoral, illegal, evil, hateful, disgraceful, contemptible, racist, and entirely unworthy of the United States as a nation. I am proud that my three sons have been intelligent and courageous enough to avoid any participation."

I also felt at home with the apocalyptic views of William Cary, Jr., who says he fought in World War I "to make the world safe for the next world war." He adds: "In June, 1971, I was blown to bits, along with almost everybody else in the world, when the U. S., having been prevented by public outcry from using nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia, did indeed use them in Latin America (claiming, of course, that to do so would save lives and shorten the war). So most of us are dead-to all intents and purposes... What a garden-spot this planet could have been, if ... if ...!"

A VERY high number of the autobiographies express a driving interest in ecological issues-such as preservation of what glorious landscapes remain in the U. S. and issues of abortion reform and population control. One graduate expressed a strong belief in the concerns of Women's Liberation. Wrote Charles Hartshorne: "Racism continues to be a dismal scandal, and so does the failure of people to realize the full meaning of technology for the possible and, on valid grounds, desirable, emancipation of women from the socially assigned restriction to being mere wives and mothers... We white men have got to outgrow the lingering superstitions about sex and race, and rethink customs and institutions which are adequate to the dangers and difficulties that technology has produced."

The years separating the Harvard careers of these men and myself seem easily spanned-and they are far from the only members of Harvard '21 who have maintained an active concern for the fate of the world during the century they have grown up with. Walter Bieringer devoted a large part of his life to working with concentration camp refugees. William Hansberry (d., 1964) spent 42 years teaching at Howard University, pioneered in the field of Afro-American studies and worked unstintingly to raise money for the college education of Africans at America's foremost black university during a time when virtually no one eared about such things.

Were these men the mavericks, the eccentrics of the Class of '21? Of course they probably were. For every Hansberry (who might well have been the only black in the class) there was someone like the guy who headed Standard Oil and now spends his time at golf or bridge. Or the alumnus in this class who managed the financial affairs of Harvard before George Bennett got his grasping hands on the portfolios. Or the one who finds the greatest pleasures in life at the Myopia Hunt Club. Or the one who boasts that his granddaughter helped elect James Buckley Senator of New York. Or the countless number of alumni who counted out their years at stockholders' meetings or brokerage houses or corporation law firms.

STILL, no matter what the Class of '71 may look like to the Class of '21, there is as much that remains the same as there is that is different. Someone in our class will undoubtedly be assassinated. Someone else is likely to enter the publishing business and build an empire.

On the other hand, very few of you have smoked marijuana, most of us have. Very few of you felt the need to demonstrate in the street (or in Harvard Yard) for political change, a lot of us have felt this need. Most of you went right from Harvard to the career of your choice; a large percentage of us have no idea what career we want. (And some of us who do are finding some difficulty in cracking graduate schools or the job market.)

In 1921 you could probably not picture your fiftieth reunion any better than we can now. Perhaps you could see the future a bit easier; at least there was no atom bomb then. Could you imagine the television cameras?... Which is all beside the point. Like the Class of '21, that of '71 has learned, if nothing else, that Harvard is bigger than all of us. If we can last, it will. Who knows? 2021 may sneak up on us without our even knowing it. If so, I hope my fiftieth reunion is held in a slightly more attractive building than Dunster House.