Fine enough. But beware that nothing is free.

One's minimum commitment far exceeds the $700 a year membership fee for a 32-year-old city resident--dollars that could buy membership to the local YMCA donors' board, a computer for a neighborhood high school or part of a semester for a student at a public college. No one else can provide that money, that time, that expertise.

And then there's the real world consequence of membership. Association with any group exacts costs of inclusion, some ideological, some financial and some ethical. For four years I've seen too many folks in tuxedos and sequins with glassy teeth and eyes roam down Mt. Auburn St. on weekend nights. Not that the people inside them are bad. But they may already believe that wearing the tuxedos is the real thing in life.

Is that what we've learned at Harvard, exclusivity?

OR HAVE we only learned hypocrisy? Is turning down The Club a weak attempt to stay "a little nobler, a little cleaner" than the rest of alumni, when we shamelessly accept the rest of the inherent benefits of a Harvard education?

That sort of reasoning is the easy way out. We don't escape hard choices by ignoring them. There is a moral domain, even for Harvard graduates. And as far as choices are considered, perhaps the finest thing about Harvard is that it present you with many of them, with a corresponding responsibility.

Say no to The Club. If you want to do business, do it at the Rotary.