Saltonstall's Group Considers Alternate War Memorial Plans

Long-awaited plans for a Memorial to Harvard men who died in the Second World War have crystallized with the recent appointment of the Saltonstall alumni committee to make a concrete recommendation in the near future. Deluged by suggestions ranging from a dedicated forest to international student fellowships, the committee faces both an ethical and an economic problem.

For two years hot debate has been raging between the advocates of a stone monument and proponents of a "living memorial" that will further war aims, with holders of every position proffering excellent reasons why his suggestion is the fittest and the most practical. But the University, in the midst of a slow alumni drive to endow the Lamont Library, may look with favor on a simple dedication that can be realized within a very few years.

Although the Saltonstall Committee has been in existence only two months, it was conceived last June when War Memorial plans were discussed at a meeting of the Associated Harvard Clubs. At that time opinion favored a functional memorial. Three suggestions were made: a new medical center, a student activities center, and a music center. Dr. Arlie V. Bock's plans for the medical center laid stress on psychological aid to veterans, thus making the project suitable for a war memorial.

Medical Service Utility

Regarding the medical service as a standard University utility, the meeting seemed to agree that the activities center could do more to cure psychological troubles. After a proposal to merge the music center with the student activities, it was decided to appoint a committee, a great body of opinion then favoring SAC.

Since last June hundreds of letters have come in from alumni, many of them favoring a simple object of beauty or a broken column in the Yard which can be seen every day by undergraduates and remembered as nothing but a war memorial. Some of the younger alumni propose endowed scholarships for study abroad, to promote international understanding and help prevent another war.

The Harvard Alumni Bulletin, after supporting the activities center, grew more cautious, and in a recent article on war memorial plans referred to it only as "the pet project of the Harvard Crimson." The absence of an undergraduate voice on the Saltonstall Committee indicated to many that the activities center had been dropped from the list of likely possibilities.

Mem Hall and Mem Church

The two monuments to Harvard men who died in other wars, Memorial Hall and Memorial Church, were objects of the same kind of controversy before and after they were built. Memorial Hall, built in 1870 as a Civil War memorial was used for many years as a 1000-man dining hall, but its idealistic purpose was soon forgotten. For the last thirty-five years it has been a comparatively useless, as well as meaningless, Harvard landmark.

Memorial Church, a compromise between a non-functional memorial and a useful building, has been criticized because it is used daily by very few, and because of its being a purely Protestant church, ignoring Harvard Catholics and Jews who gave their lives in World War I.

Reject Mem Hall

Advocates of the "pure", or marble memorial point to Memorial Hall as a warning against a functional building. "Who knows how long it will be useful," they say. "And even if it is if won't be remembered as a memorial but as a utility building."

Remembering that Memorial Church was not completed until 1982, the members of the Saltonstall Committee have shown a determination to waste no time in making their suggestions. Although they will probably come up with something concrete later this year, so extended drive for funds will materially delay the building of any elaborate project. Whether this factor will weigh heavily in the decision, only the committee itself knows.