J. P. Morgan: Alumnus
This to be the last year of the booming, shouting, rollicking twenties, and seemingly to mark the peak of the boom, the Harvard Alumni Association chose as its president financial magnate J. Pierpont Morgan, symbolizing in a way what was often attacked as the American "worship of business." Hotels bought full page ads in the Crimson, advertising their "exclusive Fall Dansants," warning the wavering sophomore that "the smart folk will attend," or that "you'll find the best crowd in the college there." Boston was the center of Harvard social life, and for many this social life was the center of Harvard.
Football enthusiasts at Harvard were stunned one morning to learn that the Carnegie Foundation had criticized the University for subsidizing athletes and for permitting vendors at Soldiers Field concessions to realize as much as $1,000 profit for the season. This had been changed before the report was published, however, and at the time of the issuance of the report, the concessions had been divided among a number of undergraduates and placed under the supervision of the Employment Office.
The New Houses
The football season over, the House Plan began in earnest. House Plan Unit No. 1 was named Lowell House, after the then President of Harvard; House Plan Unit No. 2 was named Dunster House, after the first President. Coolidge, a mathematician, who bore a rather striking resemblance to President Lowell, would head Lowell House; Greenough, an English professor, would head Dunster. Out of disgust for the group's recent plans, and to avoid any confusing of duties, Coolidge resigned his membership in the Watch and Ward Society the "arbitrators of citizens' morals." The Houses would be Georgian in design, the dining halls would not have student waiters as the Union had, and, although there would be a separate table for the tutorial staff, they would be expected to dine with the students much of the time. Architect's drawings of the sprawling Dunster and the imposing Lowell, were published, and discussion immediately raged regarding the aesthetic quality of the towers atop each of the Houses. The Lowell tower was generally approved, but the Italian Renaisance quality of the Dunster spire was frowned upon by many in the College. Boston architect William Aldrich poo-pooed this unenlightened criticism, asserting that Lowell and Dunster "will be by far the best buildings architecturally in the University."
As applications poured in for Lowell House, Master Coolidge probably breathed a thankful sigh that he resigned from Watch and Ward when he did. Two members of the society, giving false names, had repeatedly tried to buy a copy of the Boston-banned Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, from the owner of the Dunster House Bookshop (no relation to the House), and, when he finally sold them one, the good Watchers and Warders took him to Court, and, with little pricking of conscience and much soft hissing from the Harvard spectators, openly revealed their deceit. The little bookseller was sentenced to four months in the "house of correction" and an $800 fine, a sentence which, after much ensuing court action, was finally remitted.
John Dewey Arrives
About the time of 1932's sophomore mid-years, four memorable events occurred: John Dewey was appointed William James Lecturer for the second semester of 1930-31; Russian sociologist Pitrim A. Sorokin, now director of the Institute for Creative Altruism, was appointed to head the Committee on Sociology and Social Ethics; 90 men were arrested in a mass subway riot; and the charred plot of ground on Soldiers Field where the locker building had stood before the January 14 fire, was being prepared for the new Dillon Field House, designed by the omnipresent Messrs. Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott.
As the second semester opened, the Class of '32 learned that, in President Lowell's opinion, "there was no such thing as a Harvard type." He also declared that "in the Harvard administration