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"GAY LIKE ME"

The disinclination to parade one's sexual preferences or make any public issue of them is an indicator of an intact civilization.

Andrew Gray '53
Washington, D.C.

Thank you for publishing Andrew Tobias's "Gay Like Me" (January-February, page 50). For gay and lesbian alums of the University, it was a history-making issue of Harvard Magazine, and we are grateful for the story and the cover. And thank you for printing it even when confronted with the bitter hate mail you received from alums (one example of which you printed in the letters section) after you printed the lesbian villanelle last year. We appreciate your tenacity. Good work.

David Nuscher '94
David Sullivan '90
Cambridge

To put it mildly, I am appalled, shocked, disgusted, and saddened that your magazine would attempt to depict homosexuality as a normal and acceptable lifestyle. It is destructive of morality and runs contrary to religion, culture, and civilization. Don't you have any consideration for Harvard's historic reputation? I urge you to stop printing such trash.

Samuel T. Rhodes, M.B.A. '57
Alexandria, Va.

I am wondering why I make annual contributions to support a magazine that runs a cover article featuring the "coming out" stories of a group of Harvard homosexuals. These people represent a minority whose sexual preferences and acts are considered unnatural by the majority. I believe they should be viewed with sympathetic understanding, be allowed to live and work in peace, and be respected for their accomplishments--but not glorified or held up as examples of a desirable lifestyle for our youth. One of their agendas is to completely abolish ROTC at Harvard--an approach that I and most of my World War II generation find disgusting and harmful to the great majority and especially to those students who wish to serve their country in the military. To me, this article is one more indication of Harvard's selling its soul to try to satisfy every minority interest.

Richard E. Bennink '38
Franconia, N.H.

Thanks and congratulations for printing Tobias's article. Lining up under the general population's bell curve, between the left tail's "anything goes" and the right tail's virulent homophobia, I look back on my own 30-year evolution from making youthful, unconsidered comments about fairies, to becoming comfortable with the idea that some men and women simply are wired differently from most.

But this last piece, written in the superbly clear style we now expect from Tobias, offers more compelling rationales than others' colorfully in-your-face declarations, and obliges me to identify more broadly and deeply than before with the unsought difficulties faced by young persons, then and still today, who find themselves different and at a loss as to how to go forward.

Looking back on my experiences in the all-male milieu of Navy flight training, and following in Fleet Marine squadrons, I surely must have been friendly with young men who were gay without ever beginning to sense it then or finding myself in the least concerned about it in the recall. Gays in the military seems to me mostly a non-issue. The (military) operational problem relates less to orientation than to relationships--when two lusty enamoreds of whatever persuasion breach or ignore unit integrity in their public haste to tryst. It's one of the thornier problems faced by young supervising division officers, who couldn't be harmed by reading Tobias's article--a couple of times.

Tobias has done himself and Harvard proud.

Thomas D. Bethea, M.B.A. '71
Capt., USMC (Ret.)
Portland, Me.

As an undergraduate during the late 1940s struggling to understand my [gay] sexuality, I, too, felt as if I were the only one in the world with that problem. How fortunate are today's undergraduates at Harvard (and elsewhere) with support systems in place and effective. Harvard Magazine has bravely broken the conspiracy of silence by featuring that story.

H. Daniel Smith '50
Syracuse, N.Y.

As I read this excellent article, I couldn't help but be struck by the vast differences between Tobias's experience and my own. In the few months I've been here, I have found Harvard students and staff to be perfectly tolerant of lesbians and gay men. Several organizations exist to provide gay students with a comfortable and safe environment, and University policies protect us from discrimination.

The quantum leap for lesbians and gay men is proof that individuals like Tobias can make a difference, however isolated they may feel. We who are their descendants owe them a debt of gratitude.

Adam A. Sofen '01
Cambridge

It is a matter of professional responsibility and public health to respond to Tobias. Emboldened by the huge success of the gay propaganda machine, he has dared to come out of the closet (and bring others with him) and by his act has attempted to reduce the burden of what Joseph Conrad once termed "the cross one has to bear" since his early childhood, beautifully described in his book The Best Little Boy in the World.

This is understandable. And as a psychoanalytic clinician to whom homosexuals come to resolve the intrapsychic conflicts which are causative of this disorder, one can only be empathic and compassionate. What is completely misleading, however, if not outrageous, is the false assertion that homosexuality is simply an alternative lifestyle, not only to be tolerated, but cultivated as well as embraced by all--homosexuals, their parents, the Harvard community, and the public at large.

Even more serious, however, Tobias, in his lengthy essay, is claiming a freedom to alter the basic design of life itself and thus to promote the most radical of all social movements. Beneath his confessional lies the statement that all forms of sexual relations are equal and indistinguishable. But this freedom, I submit, is not ours to fulfill. It is a freedom that goes too far, because it undoes us all. It is a freedom that seeks to overturn not only the history of the human race, but to subvert its future as well--a freedom that dares to re-form the most basic institution of society, the nuclear family, an institution that is written in our natures, and evolved over eons.

Charles W. Socarides '45, M.D.
President, The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality

New York City

I am in strong disagreement with your enthusiastic endorsement of homosexuality. Please discontinue sending me Harvard Magazine.

Hudson T. Armerding, Gp '50
Quarryville, Pa.

Though fundamentalists--if any read Harvard Magazine--and narrow-minded conservatives will undoubtedly protest against this article, I wish to express my appreciation for your public service by enclosing a contribution to your magazine.

Arnold T. Schwab, Ph.D. '51
Westminster, Cal.

Alumni parading their homosexuality is a monstrous evil in view of the anatomical structure of male-female, clearly intended by nature and Nature's God to be heterosexual. Under no circumstances can abnormality ever be considered normal except in a society where everybody has lost their senses.

Carl Stiefel, Div '39
Burlington, Iowa

The tragedy for all society resulting from unquestioning adulation of the Divine Spirit understood as a "spiritual male chauvinist pig," smiling solely upon His creatures emulating in their being a male chauvinist pig image of God, has been a dark stain on so many centuries of our religious heritage. The suicides, the heartbreak, and the cost to children of misguided heterosexual unions proceeding from attempts to fulfill societal expectations is far greater than many would venture to guess. I have heard their stories in confessional circumstances and the privacy of pastoral meetings. Out of a half-century of pastoral activity, I am well aware that many a marital difficulty, many a divorce, and many a yearning after death as a respectable escape can be placed directly on the doorstep of the institutional Church and the society which it has influenced. Much praise to Tobias and those men of integrity who have risked sharing their lives on behalf of others.

Rev. Edwin Atlee Garrett III '46
Bar Harbor, Me.

I was dismayed by Tobias's use of the words "horrified" and "disgusting" in connection with "what went on in the Lamont johns." Such judgmental language both indicates and perpetuates the sexually unhealthy, Puritan moral bedrock upon which Harvard's founding fathers built their Ivory Tower. It is not for the outside observer to speculate about the psychological or emotional mindset of men having anonymous sex with total strangers in a public bathroom; nor does such an experience indicate anything meaningful, statistically speaking, about the eventual romantic lifestyle or sexual persuasion of the men involved. As Tobias points out, the moral climate of less than 30 years ago was one in which "official" psychological resources for male students confused by their feelings for other men consisted of shock therapy and other "cures." The students in the Lamont johns exhibited a fair amount of courage in acknowledging the existence of homosexuality at a time when purportedly educated opinion in this country could not.

I never had reason to use the Lamont johns, even to attend to less sublime excretions. On the other hand, as a foreign language major I was often in the Boylston basement bathroom. Consider the following exchange, scrawled in small letters on one side of the stall walls:

"Kill all the faggots" (in one handwriting);

"Why?" (in another);

"Because they must die" (in a third).

The imperative is not itself that shocking, given the equally scintillating scrawls found all over that wall. But the fact that a third participant reinforces the sentiment is truly depressing. He forms a covert, anonymous bond with another human being he'll never meet; it is an alliance based on hatred and potential violence. Next to such emotions, sexual contact between men who both want it isn't horrifying at all. The fact that it can and does happen in one of the least romantic environments I can think of says volumes about men and the ways in which we aren't women. About gay men it says much less, if anything.

Jefferson Packer '96
San Francisco

Tobias's views are based on Michael Wigglesworth's fundamental (and fundamentalist) misconception 345 years ago that "lust in one's heart"--sexual feelings toward a forbidden individual--is significant and profoundly sinful, rather than a minor aspect of ordinary living. Fear of that "lust" comes from the false belief that feelings, even though they can change radically and rapidly, are as important as behavior.

Sexual feelings toward forbidden individuals pervade our American culture. They are the basis of advertising's use of attractive women to sell products. Ads showing near-naked men in provocative poses now similarly stimulate the increasingly accepted homosexual feelings any of us can have. The homosexual love-making often presented in sex-ed courses can evoke homosexual feelings in any of us--even in those who walk out in disgust.

If we recognize the insignificance of sexual feelings, including the homosexual, we can dismiss them easily. But when such feelings evoke fear or shame and, like Wigglesworth, we attempt to deny or repress them, they can become a major source of obsession and torment. People preoccupied with homosexual feelings easily come to believe they are indeed "homosexual," especially if a clergyman or therapist confirms that "orientation." It is particularly important for teenage boys, and those who counsel them, to recognize the fluidity of adolescent sexual feelings since so many youngsters are sexually so unsure of themselves.

At Harvard, however, Presbyterian minister Rev. Richard Spalding, apparently unaware of the fluidity of these feelings, is proud to "help those who are discovering that they are gay or lesbian, to help them understand that that's not an obstacle to their blessedness in God's eyes" ("The Undergraduate," January-February 1996, page 62). He thus agrees with Rev. Peter Gomes, who claims God made him homosexual. Gay communities, of which Harvard has many, are then more than willing to confirm such "orientations" by enlisting these men in their homosexual culture and activities.

Ministers Spalding and Gomes, with the condonance of the Harvard administration, thus help guide these young men into a homosexual lifestyle which can deprive them permanently of the sacred joys of spouse and children, and shorten their life-spans by 25 years.

Nathaniel S. Lehrman '42, M.D.
Clinical director, retired,
Kingsboro Psychiatric Center
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Tobias presents a new gay stereotype, in some ways as distorted and destructive as the previous one. The reader is led to believe that gay men come from loving families and simply need a nurturing, gay-friendly environment to thrive--the Harvard of today with its tolerance of diversity, political correctness, and Gomesian feel-good theology. Unfortunately, homosexuals are much more diverse and tormented than Tobias suggests; some may be simply "wired differently," but many are severely damaged through sexual abuse, neglect, and other traumas or betrayals in childhood. To create a culture in which all young men with homosexual inclinations are mindlessly encouraged to embrace their "true identity" may also lead to despair and suicide. Sexual orientation is much more fluid, complex, symbolic, and value laden (or should be) than Tobias's provincial view implies. To struggle with the complexity and self-destructiveness of homosexuality requires courage beyond "coming out," demonstrations at public events, and "discussion" with a predetermined outcome.

Gene H. Gall, M.Div. '76
Cumberland, Md.

It was a stroke of genius--the photograph of Tobias in front of the reflecting pool--the perfect portrait of Narcissus. I wonder just how many of your readers will grasp the satire of the 14 pages of the issue devoted to this pitiful lifestyle of narcissism. How much more meaningless can life become than to flit from one orgasm to another?

John Loria, Gp '65
Reston, Va.

we met as undergraduates more than 14 years ago, have been a couple ever since, and were recently married at a ceremony attended by scores of Harvard-Radcliffe friends. It was illuminating to read a historical perspective on others' experiences, and we encourage you to continue to include stories on the gay and lesbian community in your magazine.

Christopher Liam Moore '86
William Rauch '84
Los Angeles

If a Harvard man disclosing his homosexuality is a) newsworthy; b) courageous; or c) important on any level, you must explain further. To fellow alums who believe such disclosure requires publication, I offer three words: get over yourself.

Loved the football report, though.

Henry H. Dearing '70
Los Angeles

Tobias's article reminded me of several experiences with gay men as an undergraduate. (My older brother was homosexual, and so I was aware of homosexuality and up front about it.) On one occasion, as a young man I was pretty sure was gay was, to my surprise, trying to kiss me and having a very hard time doing it, I said something like, "You know, maybe this isn't meant to be. I don't think your heart is in this. But it would be great if we could be friends." To which he responded: "Friends? Friends with a chick? Who needs to be friends with girls?"

I hope that gay men remember that one way some of them dealt with their bad or ambivalent feelings about their sexuality was by doing what men--straight and gay--have done throughout the ages: they took it out on women.

Elayne Archer '66
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Congratulations. now all that is needed is a comparable article on the experiences of lesbians, who are too often ignored in the media as it is.

Adam J. Freudenheim '96
Cambridge, England

I didn't ask, but I'm sure getting told anyway, and I'm getting really tired of it. I refer to the veritable orgy of "outings" in all forms of the public press and other media. And nowadays (e.g. your Tobias article), it seems it's not enough to have individual outings--there have to be big group outings. Give it a rest.

Marcia D. Gladstone, G '54
Denver

INCOMES GONE HAYWIRE

In "Unequal Incomes" (January-February, page 62), Professor Richard B. Freeman makes no reference to the effect on incomes of the dramatic changes in American family structures over recent decades. How can this possibly be? Particularly when he points out (quite appropriately) the very serious poverty problems of America's children?

Consider the following: In 1990, the majority of all poor families in the United States were one-parent families with children. Single-parent families with children were six times more likely to be poor than married-couple families with children. In 1993, the National Commission on Urban Families concluded that "poverty historically has derived primarily from unemployment and low wages. Today it derives increasingly from family structure." Or consider these figures on median incomes for families with different structures: In 1995, according to a 1997 census report, the median income for single parents with children was: 1) $9,898 for a never-married mother, 2) $17,789 for a divorced mother; and 3) $28,772 for a divorced father. Then contrast these figures with the median income for two-parent households--$46,195!

How widespread are these new structures? Just in the years between 1970 and 1994, the percentage of single-parent families among all families with children increased nearly two and a half times, from 13 percent to 31 percent. When we add together the effects of never-married mothers, divorce, and parental abandonment in general, it now appears that the majority of today's American children will live apart from one (or, in a number of cases, both) of their biological parents for a substantial fraction of their childhoods. We are talking about a vast, and vastly unfortunate, social phenomenon.

The causes of these startling changes in family structure are, of course, quite complex, and each of us will have his own theories about them. (Mine are developed at some length in my new book, Posterity Lost: Progress, Ideology, and the Decline of the American Family, Rowman & Littlefield.) But that Freeman fails even to mention these structural changes in his summary analysis of America's "unequal incomes" simply boggles the imagination.

Richard T. Gill '48, Ph.D. '56
Fort Lauderdale

Freeman's compelling article on the worrisome distribution of the fruits of American economic growth is followed 10 pages later by an item in "Brevia" noting that last year's compensation for Harvard's equity manager and bond investor was $7 million each! Was this unintentional irony?

Peter Z. Orton, Ed.M. '72
Hillsborough, N.C.

I question whether we need an economist to state what is so painfully and obviously awry in America's economy. Perhaps you should send a copy of Freeman's article to Harvard's Ruling Body, because clearly they don't get it. The administration is bloated in size, income, and benefits, while full-time, benefited, janitorial staff are forced out and replaced by outside contractors.

Nicole Jordan
Cambridge

Freeman's article started off promisingly enough. He cited all the harrowing truths about how the poor are getting poorer, and how uneducated young men increasingly are being sent to prison instead of being offered living-wage jobs.

But Freeman ultimately disappoints. He offers no concrete suggestions for turning the tide against unfair income distribution. Instead, he lapses into posing rhetorical nothings such as, "The dismal vision of an economic boom that does not greatly improve the earnings of ordinary workers nor reduce poverty is truly something to worry about."

To the 39 million Americans who live below the official poverty line, all the worry in the world doesn't help them one whit. Poor Americans need concrete policies that increase their incomes. Poor Americans do not need mushy Harvard liberals worrying about the "dismal vision" of an economic boom that buttresses only the rich.

Here's a handful of concrete income-redistribution suggestions for Freeman (and other liberals atop the income curve) to ponder: (1) eliminate the interest deduction for home mortgages in excess of $150,000; (2) institute a 4 percent tax on inherited wealth; (3) subject all earnings to the Social Security tax (currently, income over $65,400 is exempt from the tax); (4) increase corporate taxes to 1970s levels; (5) double the capital-gains tax; (6) most important, redistribute all income from above tax changes to workers who earn less than $25,000 per year.

Christopher Cherney '87
Oakland, Cal.

Among the major flaws of Freeman's analysis are the absence of any mention of factors such as the recent high rates of immigration, both legal and illegal, of low-skill workers, which inject continuing increases to the bottom 20 percent of income earners, and the dramatic upward mobility of persons from the bottom fifth to the middle-income levels and higher, even into the top fifth, in very short periods of time.

I must assume that the picture Freeman presents is not an academic study designed to inform, but a polemic.

Pat V. Costa, M.B.A. '77
Hauppauge, N.Y.

I found Freeman's article to be an offhand treatment of a complex subject. Important factors such as the rising percentage of service jobs in our economy and our many new welfare-to-work programs have added disproportionately to productivity's denominator. An increasingly global marketplace has produced a wage ceiling for jobs with less value added while executive stock options have removed it for those at the high end. Before we flagellate ourselves statistically, we'd better be sure we're measuring the appropriate ingredients.

Hardwick Simmons '62
President and Chief Executive Officer,
Prudential Securities Inc.
New York City

Freeman provides not the slightest valid reasoning to support his supposition that the developments to which he refers are indeed negative ones. In the only matter where sufficient information is provided, he simply defies logic by his position: he apparently does not connect America's lower productivity to its higher employment rate vis-à-vis Europe. For the same output per capita, the two must go together. Choosing to distribute income by providing more but less efficient jobs versus government-provided largesse is neither necessarily economically nor morally incorrect; it would appear to be simply a difference.

Similarly, the distribution of wealth has changed, but it is simply assumed that this is for the worse. Presumably an economy is more robust when wealth is concentrated sufficiently in the hands of those who will actively employ it. But what is the best level for the economy and the country as a whole? The question is not even addressed. Freeman simply assumes that the more equal the distribution, the better.

A final complaint: Freeman refers to "pat answers to serious concerns." Most of those presented are demagogy, simply insulting to any intelligent reader. However, it is on the question of the correctness of the consumer price deflator that he most fully reveals that he is not an honest advocate of a science of economics. A careful re-examination of the deflator may show that real wages are neither stagnant nor falling or it may show that the fall is even more extreme than we have thought; either way it is a valid technical question and the committed analyst wants first to know it as well as possible.

By mixing moral and technical questions with unexamined premises, Freeman makes himself, if not anathema, certainly unconvincing about anything. And, given his prominent positions, brings discredit to his field and its institutions, most unfortunately including Harvard's own department of economics.

Terrence Goldman, Ph.D. '73
Los Alamos, N.M.

Professor Freeman replies: I am glad my recitation of the facts of increased inequality and stagnation of average earnings struck a raw nerve with some Harvard folks. Some criticisms are valid; with limited space I had to omit parts of the story. For a full analysis I recommend my monograph When Earnings Diverge (National Policy Association, 1997). As Gill points out, changes in family structure have contributed to child poverty. As Goldman notes, slow growth of U.S. productivity has gone hand in hand with fast job growth. As Costa notes, immigration affects the labor market for the lowest paid. (But he is wrong in implying that increased mobility explains the rise of inequality; it's the wide dispersion of the earnings.) As Simmons notes, the rising number of service-sector jobs has contributed to sluggish productivity growth, but there is no reason why less-skilled service-sector workers--who do not compete with low-wage foreigners in traded goods--cannot be paid better, albeit at the cost of higher prices for those services.

None of these criticisms takes away from the key point of the article: that the distribution of the earnings of workers in the United States has gone haywire. Fully employed hard-working Americans are struggling in the most productive society in the world because earnings are more unequally distributed than in the past half century or than in any other advanced economy. Eventually, as Cherney notes, we will have to address this problem with real policies, not with worries. But, for all its virtues, Harvard Magazine is not the place for an analysis or debate on policy choices.

The May 1926 number. The Gadfly has dropped its hyphen.CREDIT

A SUBSEQUENT GAD-FLY

I hasten to point out an error in "The College Pump" (January-February, page 88) on the Harvard Liberal Club's publication The Gad-Fly. You correctly describe the periodical as sporadic, but you err when you state that the issue dated December 1925 was its last. There was at least one further issue, dated May 1926. I enclose a copy of it, which I have kept for almost 72 years.

I had an article in that issue although I was but a sophomore at the time and, by a year or two, the youngest and most callow of contributors. Unlike those earlier Gad-flys, this issue was no literary exercise. It was, we felt, the serious business of the Liberal Club to take up the cudgels of democratic liberalism to preserve the traditional policy of our University's open admissions based on merit and open opportunity, as opposed to a disturbing policy of a sort of aristocratic limitation by exclusionary bars to admission. This was serious business, and this time there were no red-ink parodies.

A. Frank Reel '28, J.D. '31
New York City

HARVARD'S GOOD NAME

"Harvard eggs? Protecting the name" (January-February, page 72) reminded me of a small Scandinavian epiphany. Some years ago, in Sweden, I was strolling with my wife through a department store in Stockholm. Suddenly she pointed to a far wall where a large sign, indicating an entire category of merchandise, said simply "harvard." Curious to see why Swedes would pay such attention to a foreign university, we hurried over, only to find row upon row of shelves stocked with shampoo. A sympathetic clerk explained that "har vard" is Swedish for "hair care."

James H. Goulder Jr. '72
St. James, N.Y.

Harvard licenses the name for $90 eyeglass frames, shoes, and what-all, big in Japan. OK, so what--my choice to buy or not, and no reason Harvard shouldn't capitalize on the name, I guess. Harvard versus Bill Blass? From my viewpoint, it cheapens the name a bit.

Then I found on page 39 of your January-February issue an ad for a "Personalized Mahogany Crest." A cheap plaque, priced at $120! I still have the option to buy or not, but the cost versus price makes this one real sleaze.

I decided to complain to you via the magazine's website and found a banner ad for this junk at the top of the page! Have you lost your minds? I have a diploma for the wall--this plaque is for phony claimers.

W. Bradlee Snow Jr. '60, M.B.A. '65
Bedford, Mass.

Owen drives by a Williams defenseman HARVARD YEARBOOK

PUT ANOTHER OLYMPIAN ON ICE

There was a fourth Harvard man on the 1960 gold-medal-winning team in the Olympics in addition to the three you name ("A Century on Ice," January-February, page 82). E. Robert Owen '58 was an alternate captain for that team and played defense. He was my roommate at Harvard, and we have kept in touch.

David Beadie '58
Edina, Minn.

NEW FERTILITY, NEW QUESTIONS

A myriad of issues is posed by "The New Fertility" (November-December 1997, page 54). Should health-care institutions providing in vitro fertilization (IVF) set their own standards concerning who is to donate the egg or the sperm? Should they set standards at all, either for fertilization donors or their donees? Is there a public interest that would require state guidelines or legislation?

Should the person "reproduced" by way of IVF be given the name and address of the egg/sperm donor when he/she wishes it? At maturity? Is there an analogy to be found in regulations concerning adoption?

How can "incestacy" be avoided?

Although the market rate for sperm is low as compared with that for eggs, isn't it a fee-for-services arrangement, or sale, in both cases? If money is exchanged, is it correct to describe the procedure as a donation?

If payment for sperm/egg "donation" is acceptable, why is payment for the kidney of an impoverished "donor" not so? Is there an ethical difference between the transfer of an organ for money, not usually encouraged, and the transfer of body material so as to create a new life? Should either or neither be compensated?

Other inquiries of similar import present themselves. Encouragingly, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has an ethics committee, and the organization is calling for a national commission. It is also good to know that Harvard Magazine is addressing matters of great concern in a very informative "must read" article.

Ruth Dreyfus, J.D. '54
Stamford, Conn.

YES, PURITANS INTOLERANT

Robert B. Shaw, in his letter "Puritans Not Bloodthirsty" (January-February, page 14), writes: "It can hardly be argued that the Puritan regime was one of particular tolerance, but it is very easy, and much too common, to exaggerate its intolerance and severity." I protest that it is, on the contrary, very difficult to exaggerate its intolerance and severity.

Shaw accounts, more or less, for 52 of 57 persons who he says were executed in the Bay Colony between 1630 and 1692. I can put names to four of the other five: William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, Mary Dyer, and William Leddra. These were Quakers hanged on Boston Common because they violated a law passed in 1658 banishing convicted Quakers from the colony on pain of death. This was no fluke, but the culmination of decades of harsh treatment of religious nonconformists in the Bay Colony. The hangings ended only with the receipt of a mandamus from King Charles II requiring that Quakers, whether condemned or imprisoned in New England, be returned to England. Compare this to present-day New England, where we may frown to find a Jehovah's Witness on our doorstep, but would never think of having him arrested and hanged or even imprisoned, whipped, or mutilated, as happened to my seven-times-great-grandfather Christopher Holder, who felt called of God to proselytize in Boston for the Quakers.

My eight-times-great-grandmother Catherine Marbury Scott had enough of the Bay Colony after the abuse and exile of her sister Ann Hutchinson and moved to Rhode Island with her family. Twenty years later, "a grave, sober, ancient woman," she returned to protest when Christopher Holder's ear was cut off. She herself was imprisoned, whipped with a "threefold corded knotted whip," and threatened with death if she returned. She answered, "If God calls us, woe be to us if we come not, but He whom we love will make us not to count our lives dear unto ourselves for the sake of his name." Governor John Endicott replied, "And we shall be as ready to take away your lives as ye shall be to lay them down."

Yes, the Puritans were intolerant, and yes, they were severe.

Marjorie H. Moore '53
Winchester, Mass.

"FAIR HARVARD" REVISED

"Revising 'Fair Harvard'" (January-February, page 86)? Don't tear it apart. Try this: "Fair Harvard! Thy scions thy jubilee throng...." It's hardly noticeable. It includes both women and men. It is obscure like the rest of the poem.

Robert C. Morton, J.D. '40
Minneapolis

"Fair Harvard! We come to thy grand jubilee...." While "we join in" does achieve inclusiveness, it tends to emphasize the noun "throng" rather than "jubilee," which "throng," as a verb, did not.

Robert S. Russell '53
Belmont, Mass.

Can I be the first reader to suggest that the new wording will probably impact no one other than current and former Glee Club members? Does anyone else actually know (much less sing) the words?

Robert A. Myers '58, Ph.D. '64
New York City

MOM AND THE LAUNDRY

Norman T. Byrnes '44 ("Hitchhiking to Harvard," January-February, page 12) mentioned that when he was an undergraduate, he mailed his laundry back and forth to his mother, "who washed it and returned it, sometimes with cookies or other treats." In my time laundry boxes were handled by Railway Express, which charged 38 cents each way, door to door, usually taking no more than two days between Warren, Ohio, and Cambridge. The box itself was about the size of a small suitcase, but consisted of two open boxes one slightly larger than the other, the larger telescoping over the smaller, resulting in an expandable carton. It was made of a strong fiber material, with a web strap to fasten it, and a place into which an address card could be inserted. I sent it home every two weeks, and my mother returned it in the intervening weeks.

In addition to the saving in cost over a laundry contract (about a dollar a week at the time, I think) and the greater loving care of my shirts by my mother, including mending and buttons, the box usually came back with cookies or fudge or similar goodies inside. My friends used to look forward to the arrival of the sweets. (In my sophomore or junior year, a classmate was trying to sell me a laundry contract on the basis that it was cheaper by the time you counted the cost of the laundress or maid at home; I had to explain to him who the laundress in our house was!)

Wilson V. Binger '38, S.M. '39
Chappaqua, N.Y.

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