The cream of the 1975 crop was shepherded through Harvard Yard yesterday by fife-and-drum players on the way to two hours of Literary Exercises in Sanders Theater during the Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony.
More than 100 of 159 initiates donned caps and gowns and made the slow procession from Emerson Hall.
Later they joined an audience of about 400 in Sanders Theater to hear poet Anthony E. Hecht and Dr. Robert Coles '50, psychiatrist to the University Health Services, deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Poem and Oration.
"I was tempted to undermine the dignity of this occasion by offering a group of dirty limericks," Hecht said. Instead, he read two untitled poems, one of them contrasting the birth of his son to the carnage of the Vietnam War.
Class Failure
Coles told the assemblage that middle class white Liberals have failed to engage in the kind of self-examination and acknowledgement of prejudice that they have forced lower-class whites to perform.
Speaking for an hour on "Boston and the South," Coles noted the irony of the fact that Boston--the seat of abolitionism and the source of many "civil rights activists"--has experienced violence during its implementation of a school busing plan.
Coles said that the "well-educated" are not free from "racism, snobbery, condescension, or arrogance," qualities that he said they have "hidden by the cozy power of money and privilege."
The author of a book on the migration of southerners, Coles often interrupted his speech with the words. "Here he is talking," to preface the remarks of poor people about civil rights and busing.
Both speakers were well received, and several members of the audience rose to applaud Coles.
Hecht opened the deliveries with a humorous poem that purported to be an alcohol-inspired vision of a Hollywood production of the Bicentennial, casting Groucho Mars as P.T. Barnum.
Hecht said that his second poem was written about events that occurred three years ago. It read in part, "My son is born, and in his mother's eyes Turns the whole war and winter into lies."
Wearing the hood of a doctor of letter. Hecht spoke in a deep British accent for about 15 minutes.
Coles followed and in a nasal Boston accent, said that Boston's efforts at desegregating schools displays "the power of history to stay stubbornly close to us."
He said that the unrest that has accompanied busing in Boston is the "empty desperation of the violent," which be said he has witnessed in the South.
In addition to the 113 Harvard and 46 Radcliffe students who were feted in the proceedings. Phi Beta Kappa inducted five honorary members by a three-quarters vote of the group during a private meeting. The honoraries included Robert Tonis, retiring chief of Harvard police; Richard S. Aldrich '25, a producer: Robert E Blye '50, a poet: Dr. John Perry Hubbard '25, the president of the National Board of Medical Examiners: and Owen J. Gingerich, professor of Astronomy and of the History of Science.
Although his name was on the ballot offered by a Phi Beta Kappa committee to the members. Amory Houghton Jr. '50, an Overseer, failed to gain election. Houghton, who is chief executive officer of the Corning Glass Works, was the only candidate identified on the ballot as a businessman.
After it was announced in the private meeting that Houghton had not been elected, a graduate member of the society was reported to have turned to his neighbor and said. "That cost the chapter $50,000.
