State to Allow House Dances This Saturday

An abrupt about-face by the Massachusetts Department of Public Saftey has enabled five of the Houses to reschedule their dances for Veterans' Day.

The Department reinterpreted last year's broadened Blue Law to permit the holding of dances on Saturday, Nov. 11, by veterans' groups, fraternal organizations, alumni groups, and therefore, college organizations.

Winthrop House and Lowell House, however, have chosen to forfeit their planned dances in favor of late parietal hours. Closed dances will be run at Adams and Leverett House, and possibly Quincy; with Eliot, Dunster, and Kirkland sponsoring open ones.

"Bet you there ain't gonna be no dance," Eliot Perkins '23, Master of Lowell House, stated before the announcement of the house committee decision.

Hasty Pudding Institute, Pi Eta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and the Freshman Class will run their social events as scheduled. The fate of a dance planned by the Harvard Band has not definitely been decided.

Morning Sports to Run

Morning athletic events will also proceed as usual, Dean Watson reported. According to University lawyers Ropes and Gray, the 1960 law does not prohibit sports before 1 p.m., as do regular Sunday Blue Laws.

Although Cambridge Police have also okayed the games, their reason was considerably different. Officers stated yesterday that the morning athletics--although strictly illegal in the terms of last year's law--were permitted to schools, in a decision of Massachusetts Attorney General Edward J. McCormack "a few weeks ago," when he was questioned about Thanksgiving Day games.

McCormack Unavailable

At 3 p.m. yesterday the Department of Public Safety announced that it was "willing to entertain requests for permits" for non-wedding dances, which one week ago had been absolutely declared illegal by this same group. Reportedly, certain veteran and union organizations put pressure on the Department for a reversal. Attorney General McCormack was not available for comment last night.

It has not been definitely indicated whether the new ruling amounts to a temporary exception to the law or an outright re-interpretation. If the latter case is true, officials involved in the situation have said, the 1960 law appears to have little practical effect.