Alumni Committee Will Campaign For War Memorial Activities Center

Twenty-seven alumni have formed a committee to work openly for a University Memorial Activities Center. Their first official statement appears in tomorrow's issue of the Alumni Bulletin in the form of an open latter to all alumni, signed by Daniel P. S. Paul '46, executive secretary, and the other members of the group.

The body is the first frank alumni pressure group to support one of the three proposals advanced in Senator Leverett Saltonstall's War Memorial Committee report of November 7. The two other proposals were: a combination of scholarships and a plaque, or a medical center.

The Committee members, in addition to Paul, are; Cleveland Amory '39, John B. Bowditch '37, George M. Burditt, Jr. '44, Hugh Calkins '45, Dan H. Fenn, Jr. '44, Harold P. Field '46, William M. Flook, Jr. '44, John C. Harper '46, Dean M. Hennessy '45, John A. Holabird '42, Richard P. Kleeman '44, Thomas S. Kuhn '44;

Committee Members

T. Ferguson Locke '35, Langdon P. Marvin '41, Thomas Matters '43, Vern Miller '42, Thomas L. P. O'Donnell '47, Endicott Peabody '42, Roswell B. Perkins '47, John C. Robbins, Jr. '42, Armand Schwab, Jr. '46, Saul Sherman '47, Philip M. Stern '47, Robert S. Sturgis ' 44, Richard H. Sullivan '41, and James Tobin '39.

The new committee favors the Student Activities Center, it states in its letter to the alumni, because "activities foster the capacity for constructive, cooperative enterprise, for leadership, for the fulfillment of responsibility, and for the development of personal initiative and the interchange of ideas.

"If a memorial is best to commemorate the war dead, it must serve them," contends the committee's letter. In their opinion this end is to be most readily achieved by "building better Harvard men" and better citizens instilled with the ideals for which the war dead fought and gave their lives.

Provide Incentive

According to the Committee, the proposed activities center would provide an incentive for the organization of more extra-curricular activities, thereby equipping the students with a better-rounded education and a healthier community spirit within the University.

Plans for the center as stated in the Paul Jetter, do not advocate lush furnishings and be muralled walls, but a wholesome medium between the "let them starve" attitude which strangles budding organizations and any pampering of them which would deprive the students of the initiative and responsibility of maintaining and conducting their own affairs.

The Committee estimates the building will cost $1,300,000 plus endowments. With this figure in mind they have envisioned office, working, and meeting facilities for bath graduate and undergraduate organizations.

Sanders Theatre, its possibilities as an amphitheatre hopelessly stified by fire regulations, poses the problem of what to use for an auditorium. In solution of this dilemma the Committee has proposed a theatre seating 1,500 and suitable for plays, forums, and movies as the center of the building.

As a final measure the building would contain a plaque bearing the names of all those men who gave their lives and would be outfitted with a memorial room to remind students using the building of its "basic purpose and origin."

Inviting, the support and help of all other alumni, the Committee will receive letters urging the selection of a Memorial Activities Center through the Alumni Association in Wadsworth House, Cambridge.

Obstacles

Casting a vote in favor of the Center was a letter, also in the new Alumni Bulletin, from John A. Holabird '42, enumerating the difficulties he encountered as both an undergraduate and a graduate while helping produce plays under the limited University facilities.

"As a one-time high school drama teacher, read Holabird's letter, "I would say that the conditions for producing worthwhile group theatre projects at Harvard more nearly correspond to an archaic nineteenth century public high school than to a leading American university.

"I like the theatre work at Harvard," said Holabird in conclusion. "In a way there is more reward for overcoming the obstacles I have mentioned than if everything were easy and mechanical I do feel though, that the present situation is expensive, dangerous, and exceedingly wasteful for the students involved.