The Students for a Democratic Society, a small,left-wing militant group demanded an end tomilitary and military-industrial recruiting,Harvard expansion into poor communities, the ROTCprogram, and other connections between theUniversity and war-related activities.Administrators walked a fine line as they soughtto reach a satisfactory balance of studentdemands. The bureaucracy could not move fastenough to satisfy one segment of SDS.
A fraction of those in attendance at a SDSmeeting on April 8, 1969, decided to occupy abuilding the next day. Shortly before noon onApril 10, they did so, ejecting the deans inUniversity Hall and renaming the building "CheGuevara Hall."
Students who gathered outside the buildingoverwhelmingly opposed the occupation, and therewas talk of football players and other able-bodiedstudents coming to remove the occupiers. Then, atdawn the next day, with no advance warning to theFaculty or the students, President Pusey orderedin the police.
Arrayed in combat gear and ready for violentaction, they came by the hundreds. At dawn, theymarched in and cleared the building with nightsticks and battering rams. Many students wereinjured, a few seriously; a significant number ofreporters were arrested and tossed in jail. Inseconds, the mood of the University changed fromanti-occupier to anti-Administration.
The Crimson came out with an extra soonafter--its second in two days. Crimson editorswere among the group of reporters from the mostdistinguished publications in the country who werearrested, and Crimson photographers were among themany whose cameras were smashed by police billyclubs.
For a generation of Crimson editors, the act ofsummoning riot-equipped police to the Harvard Yardstood as tantamount to treason.
The selection of a successor to Pusey engagedthe attention of the University in 1970-71. WhenDerek C. Bok was selected as President, TheCrimson was ready to tell Harvard everything therewas to be known about the Law School Dean and thereasons for his selection.
At the close of The Crimson's first century, amore elaborate version of this history waspublished in a book form by Michael Ryan, andscores of Crimson alums gathered at the HarvardClub of Boston to celebrate the paper'scentennial.
The first editorial of The Crimson contended:"I won't philosophize, I will be read." Theclosing lines of The Crimson's centennial historyprovided some context for that promise and itssuccess--in spite of near failure.
"To survive and to prosper, any community needsa newspaper. A community's newspaper will be itsvoice and its conscience: it will prod, it willprotest, it will expose, and it will complain; itwill report, it will explain, and it will givepraise when praise is due. It will notphilosophize, and it will be read. The communitywill support it, and it will keep the communityalive.
"Harvard is just such a community."