'37 To '39

Most people like to study statistics, perhaps because they are usually depressing, and almost everyone has a touch of sadism or masochism in him. At any rate, John Tunis' classic debunk of things at Harvard several years ago was able to provide Harvard men with something of a thrill. In addition, it was enough to give them an acute inferiority complex enough to convince them that they went out with clay pipes instead of silver spoons. Most Harvard graduates, infers Mr. Tunis, must have the fate of Broadway's current Harvard man-the spectacular specimen in "The Priterose Path."

Mr. Moyer of the Alumni Placement Office respectfully begs to disagree with Mr. Tunis in a recent Alumni Bulletin article. Basing his predictions on fact and figures of the Class of '37, Mr. Moyer can say to the Class of '39: Two years from now, ceteris paribus, half of you will have jobs. Most of the rest of you will be plugging yet in graduate schools, aiming to be doctors, lawyers, professors, and tycoons. Only four per cent of you- say thirty out of six hundred and fifty--will be part of the eleven million who tramp the payments. And finally, if you are working, you will be earning $4.75 a week more than the average full-time wage earner in the United States.

Depression psychology has made June the saddest month in the year--completely aside from the fact that it is the middle-aisle month. For this is the time that thousands of sober-minded and clear-eyed American youth march lightly and boldly from out of ivied gates, only to find that a cold world has no room for them. Perhaps this can be a different commencement -- just for a change--for Harvard '39. Maybe the bond houses, closed their fabulous doors when turtle-neck sweaters went out. But, assuming that the next depression holds off a few years at least, the Class of '39 can look forward to twenty-four strikes out of twenty-five.