Band Salutes Yale at 4 A.M.; Seven Jailed

Seven members of the "Fightin' Harvard Band" were arrested in New Haven Saturday following a 4 a.m. raid on the Yale campus.

The 130 band members marched five blocks between dormitories filled with sleeping Yalies blaring "Our Director," "Harvardiana," "Soldiers Field" and "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard."

After covering their carefully mapped route in 11 minutes, the bandsmen scrambled into the buses. New Haven police, however, had already blockaded the road in front of the buses and begun looking for the band's leader.

Acting under instructions not to point out manager Edward A. Alpers '63 as the police asked them questions, members appeared to suffer from amnesia. "Gee, I'm sorry, officer, I can't remember who our leader is," said one. "This is a pretty disorganized group. I don't think we have a leader," said another.

When the police threatened to arrest the entire band if the leaders did not identify themselves, a number of lower-level band officials stepped forward. Seven of them, along with a local drunk, were loaded into a paddy-wagon and taken to the police station.

Booked on charges of disturbing the peace and parading without a permit were Neal D. Borden '64, Kendall N. Houk '64, Peter B. Farrow '64, Timothy Brown '64, Edward H. Flitton '64, Paul Hilstad '65, and Fred B. Smith '65.

Raise $350 for Bonds

Apparently prepared for trouble, the band members had little difficulty raising bonds of $50 each. They were placed in two cells, where one group slept while the other listened to a reading from "St. Benedict's Rule for Monasteries." By 7 a.m. the group was freed, and the band completed their secondary objective, the trip to Columbia for the football game.

No one was particularly upset by the band's performance. Apparently the Yalies were too drowsy or stupified to throw the beer and water bombs usually tossed during raids. The few Yale students who got out of bed stood quietly and watched. Some even applauded.

Neither the Yale nor the New Haven police were angered by the raid. Louis Fairbanks, night inspector of the Yale police forced, labeled it "good, clean fun." He offered to post bond from a fund to bail out Yale undergraduates.

A New Haven police lieutenant said it compared to a similar raid in 1953. "These kids are gentlemen," he added.

In the trial, scheduled for October 30, the precedent favors the accused. After the 1953 raid, the judge, a Harvard man, dismissed the case.