JOHN D. MERRILL

Few undergraduates came to know John D. Merrill. More's the pity. Now that he's gone it's hard to think of a man who typifies so well the true Yankee, Harvard gentleman. Wise, modest, matter-of-fact, for a half century he wrote politics for New England in the Boston Globe, and for almost as long he edited the Harvard Alumni Bulletin.

Pneumonia took John Merrill yesterday, at 75, and it will be hard to get used to the idea. For years he had offices in the Crimson building, a good and friendly neighbor. Monday nights, particularly, we would see him, when he was putting the Bulletin together. He was a middle-sized man, gray, with a proud moustache, a twinkle in his eye, and a ready chuckle. The spring in his step and a military posture belied his age by at least a score of years. His desk was forever a chaos of books and manuscripts and photos, but somehow the magazine came out. He would wear a brown felt hat turned up at the brim, and a dark coat.

In a hundred ways he was the salt of New England. For years he shouldered two man-sized jobs, with ease and distinction. His courtesy was unfailing, his skepticism healthy. The honesty of the man was never more marked than in his day-to-day product. He scorned the trappings of style that sometimes pass for journalistic brilliance. He wrote to convey information, not for effect. For fifty years his big holiday was the Harvard-Yale boat races, and his Globe story would always come in in some such fashion: "Harvard's crew defeated Yale this afternoon on the Thames by three lengths." He wrote his politics the same way. A true conservative, he cherished the best of the past, adjusting himself sensibly to progress. But a month has passed since his magazine changed to a handsome modern format. Among newspapermen and politicians, professors and alumni, his integrity and humanity won high honor.

Words can convey little of such a man. New England mourns a valued journalist, Harvard a devoted son, and we a good neighbor and friend. What remains to all is the touch of a truly great character.