Housemasters Veto Plan to Set Up Laundry Facilities in House Cellars

Housemasters have turned a thumbs down to a proposal by William H. Parker '48 for the installation of automatic pay laundry machines in the basements of all Houses, Robert B. Watson '37, associate dean of the College, disclosed last night.

The plan, Parker holds, is a commercial one designed to save students both money and time in getting their laundry done.

Nine pounds of dirty clothes, he estimates, could be washed and dried in the House-accommodated machine for 20 cents.

Although vetoing the plan at a meeting Thursday evening also attended by Dean Bender and himself, Watson declared, the Masters were "very anxious" to see some comparable type of laundry scheme adopted, but "it was decided that it is not feasible to have any kind of Bendix machines put in the Houses."

Objections, he said, were mainly that (1) "if it's to be done, it should be done for everyone-not just the Houses". (2) architectural arrangements of some of the House basements make it impossible to accommodate a machine and the attendant drier.

Indicating that the University might be willing to back such a project. Watson said that the Masters referred the entire matter to Edward Reynolds '15, administrative vice president, for consideration. Watson emphasized that the whole situation is in an "embroyonic state," and that there are many possible objections to it.

"If the University could run it on a non-profit basis," he admitted, "the price would be a lot lower, it would be a much bigger thing, and it would be available to everyone . . . The Graduate students, in fact, need it more than do those in the College."