Freshmen Considered Putty In Hands of Strange Fate

The characters of some nine hundred and ninety-seven new Mickey Rooneys of Harvard's happy family are being extracted, expounded and exploded by a far more important body of men than the run-of-the-mill jury of Advisors, Infant Deans, Section Men, and Professors.

Perhaps the most determining factor in the future happiness and success of the newly-planted Freshman sapling is the opinion of him which is held by Cambridge Yard Cops, Check-Cashers, Tailors, Barbers, Janitors, Liquor Store Clerks, et ilk.

These are the gentlemen who, with mischievous smile on their lips, observe the flock as it wanders from information booth to information booth--asking, pleading, praying for someone to please answer only one question: "Where is the information booth?"

The elderly gentleman who guards the gate by Massachusetts Hall condescendingly delivered the opinion that Ickes might have meant well, but that the cars came pouring into the Yard as fast and furiously as ever, and if anything was ever really done about it, Harvard students would rot in their rooms rather than walk as far as the Stag Club.

Tellers at the Cambridge Trust are waiting, in two-fisted silence, for the lads of '45 who have an ingeniously idealistic conception of the banking business and will insist that an overdrawn account is not really overdrawn, but just temporarily embarrassed.

Barbers in the Square are muttering about the discouragingly short crop of Freshman hair, while janitors in the Yard have pricked up their cars for the first adolescent scream of "Rhinehart!" to pierce the September air.

One Gentleman Tailor, when asked why he was strolling so far from the madding crowd of bewildered registrants, calmly explained that he was just waiting till he was sure they were definitely in the institution before he pulled that line about giving them unlimited credit till June of their Senior year. "You may be an early bird," he beamed "but I prefer to be a smart worm."

The man with the greatest insight into the true beauty of all that Harvard stands for, however, spends his days behind the counter of the Varsity Liquor Store.

"The Freshman drinking situation pans out like this," he diagnosed. "When the Dean forms his border line, we form our liquor line. The much they funk, the much they're drunk. That's why I've always been so proud of Harvard's high educational standards."