EXPLANATION

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Every Harvard man has noted with distaste the multitude of Cambridge youngsters cheering for the Eli on the eve of the Harvard-Yale game. An incident which occurred last Friday night may explain why.

When two of us entered the Graduate School Recreation Room to play ping-pong, we noticed two young teen-agers apparently waiting for a table. After we had played several games we invited them to join in and play doubles. Their conduct was proper in every respect. Before we had completed one game, a Yard cop and a buildings official arrived and bodily removed our youthful opponents. We protested that it was as our guests that they were playing. Because of our protest the Yard cop demanded the name of one of us. We resumed play only to be interrupted again by the return of the same Yard cop, who asked us if we wanted to see the Cambridge police.

We replied in the affirmative, and four of us followed him into the superintendent's office in William James Hall. There two Harvard policemen, two members of the Cambridge police force, and the buildings official were ominously confronting the two frightened youths in a completely unlighted room. The Yard cop allowed only one of us into the room and he was soon informed that he could be booked on the charge of contributing to juvenile delinquency for inviting the two boys to play. Realizing that the boys were already in the game-room when we invited them to play, the cop dropped this ridiculous charge. The cop ghoulishly depicted a certain Sergeant whom he declared the kids were to be taken to Court to see.

The cop charged that the boys were breaking a 9 p.m. curfew and furthermore that they had been repeatedly trespassing on Harvard property. Up to this point the kids, terrified by their accusers, had not ventured to reveal their names to the policemen gathered around them. The one of us admitted to the room inquired whether the boys would be allowed to avoid going to Court if they were to give the police their names. After quite some time, during which the police continued to press their threats, the boys were calmed sufficiently by our representative to give out their names. As a result of this action, these two boys did not incur a court record.

This is the end of the story, but two implications deserve emphasis. In the first place, the police used totalitarian-tinged methods. Secondly, it appears that these are the only facilities for ping-pong in the neighborhood acoessible to the boys. Perhaps these two facts will help explain why next fall the Cambridge youth will be cheering for the Bulldogs. Albert E. Trieschman 1G   David M. Heer 1G