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History of the Crimson Survival, Solvency, and, Once in a While, Something Serious to Editorialize About

At that point, the student body began to clamor for what they had so often clamored against, and the CRIMSON was resurrected as a feeble weekly only 20 days after it had ceased to publish.

After Christmas vacation in 1918, the paper was once again on a daily schedule, and the CRIMSON soon began to regain its former health. In 1919, the paper bought the 20-year-old Harvard Illustrated, a pictorial journal, and thenceforth published a bi-weekly photographic supplement. The next year, the progressive board also purchased a new press, which made the addition of a fifth column of news possible.

The larger paper was indicative, and what the Crime lacked in quality, it made up in quantity. On the day of the Yale game in 1921, for instance, editors spewed forth a 16-page edition, a 40-page pictorial supplement, a four-page post-game extra, and 45,000 song programs, which is a world's record for something or other.

The 1923 staff woke up one morning-if it had ever gone to bed-to find that the paper had survived for fifty years and appeared inordinately healthy. The New York Evening-Post called the Crime "a very fine and highgrade expression of the best student sentiment," while Mother Advocate, thinking back to the days when the paper was an upstart literary magazine, observed, "If the child is father to the man, the two are often strangely dissimilar."

Linotyping in the '20's was under the capable mismanagement of Dick Dyer, and credit goes to him for the worst "pruf hacks" (proofreading errors) of the decade. On one occasion Dyer, offended by the euphonics of Agamemnon's name, proceeded to alter it to "Agoddammit." Likewise, a bit of theological profundity on the merits of the Christian faith lost its effort in no small degree when the head above it appeared proclaiming "Christianity: A Positive Farce."

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More seriously, the CRIMSON was for the first time overtly criticizing a University administration. The University's anti-theatre policy had resulted in the closing of the '47 Workshop and the resignation of Professor Baker to Yale. With the demise of the Workshop, the CRIMSON made its first of several attacks on President Lowell's regime. After that, the CRIMSON "viewed with disfavor" a whole series of actions, including College eating facilities, the inefficiency of the Harvard Athletic Association, bureaucratic red-tape, the handling of the athletic rupture with Princeton in 1926, a rise in tuition, and the brutality of Cambridge police in quelling a student riot in 1927.

While the editorial board was flexing its muscles, the news coverage of the CRIMSON was also developing, primarily along athletic lines. While sports stories abounded, when a policeman shot a Harvard student in October, 1928, the only notice given the affair in the CRIMSON was a small editorial sounding off against the indiscriminate use of firearms.

The Depression

In 1932, the Depression hit Plympton Street hard, and the paper could not meet mortgage payments, much less pay its normal operating expenses. Papers were small, advertisements few and far between, although deadlines were met, even at the personal expense of editors.

Even in the middle of economic crisis, however, Crimeds managed to disagree among themselves so violently that eleven top-notch editors resigned to launch a new daily, the Harvard Journal. Another battle, reminiscent of the almost forgotten News skirmish, was on.

What was left of the CRIMSON rallied around to wage a battle to the death with the rebel editors. The "100 Days War" ended by June, when the Journal editors had had it, financially and academically, and the Crime emerged victorious, not unchanged. The presence of a vigorous competitor had forced the CRIMSON to become

a far more modern and readable paper than it had been before the schism.

While the CRIMSON had numerous advantages and several disadvantages in the war with the Journal the real hero was Arthur Hopkins From 1929 until his retirement in 1964, chief linotypist Art was the hero of the nightly "Battle of the Bilge." It was he who guided the inexperienced editors through the 100 Day War and it was Art who again rescued the CRIMSON during the Second World War.

Tutoring Schools

Following the defeat of the Journal in the '30s?? the Crime's? next major opponent was the commercial tutoring schools. In 1939, when its conscience would have been hurt more by complacency than its pocketbook was injured by ?? the paper rejected advertising from what it called the intellectual branches and began a crusade which saw their abolition within a year.

The paper emerged from battle flushed with victory and financially very, very, able. Red ink was a thing of the past.

By 1948 the CRIMSON was fat and sassy and the 70th anniversary was an occasion of unstated-self-congratulation. The President of the United States took time out to write: "As an old CRIMSON man... I am sure that I voice the sentiments of all of that company of happy men when I say that none of them would exchange his CRIMSON training for any other experience or association of his college days...."

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