Hagiography should have its limits, and John T. Bethell's "Frank Roosevelt at Harvard...and what became of him later" (November-December 1996) grossly exceeds them. We may all be grateful that FDR was "a traitor to his class," but he was just as surely a traitor to humanity. David S. Wyman's The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (1985) irrefutably proves that Roosevelt bears a major burden of responsibility for the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of European Jews.

Peter Heinegg, Ph.D. '71
Schenectady, N.Y.

Bethell notes that the animus against arguably the greatest president of this century continues to this day, on the part of that class of privilege he is accused of "betraying." Today that same animus is visited upon his philosophical and ideological successor, who had the presumption to get himself reelected.

Paul Rothkrug '36
San Francisco

Although I enjoyed Bethell's piece, i was dismayed by his offhanded explanation of FDR's "gentleman's C's." Bethell's comment that these marks would be "worth high B's by today's standards" takes as fact a single side of the grade-inflation debate.

I would first point out the fruits of Bethell's own research. He tells us that, among other things, FDR was captain of the Missing Links football team; was an usher and cheerleader at football games; took six courses per term; sang with the Freshman Glee Club and served as its secretary; suffered the loss of his father during his freshman year; rowed freshman crew; belonged to the Institute of 1770, the Fly Club, the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, the Memorial Society, the Signet Society, the St. Paul's Society, the Political Club, the Republican Club, and the Yacht Club; served as librarian to the Fly Club, the Hasty Pudding Club, and the Harvard Union; was managing editor, then editor of the Crimson. Any normal student trying to contend simultaneously with so many activities and obligations must necessarily suffer lower grades than his peers, present or future.

As to the general belief that there is such a thing as grade inflation, I would argue that it is a great exaggeration. First, consider the student body at Harvard during FDR's stay there, or at any time prior to the near present. The prototypical Harvard student of the past was rich, white, male, and well connected. Today, not only do students come from a much larger population base, but from a broader spectrum: women, non-Caucasians, and less affluent students are visible everywhere on Harvard's campus. From this larger and broader pool of applicants, I would imagine that Harvard's slim acceptance rate would render today's student body of higher caliber than ever before. So if today's students are receiving higher marks, perhaps they deserve them.

Second, consider the changing face of learning. The amount of information in the world increases exponentially with each passing year. How much more must a science student learn today than he or she had to 50 years ago? How much more must any student know in 1996 to get along? Although modern Harvard students may not perform as well in classical subjects as students used to, they are nimble users of computers and the Internet, knowledgeable about the complex political problems that face our world, and well versed in the accomplishments of cultures and peoples that were once considered insignificant. The great expansion of information has made it necessary for students to learn less about more. So it seems unfair to compare the exams of students present and past on a single subject; the comparison does not take into account the number of additional subjects the modern student must master.

Finally, the tales of "the old days" I heard during my four years in Cambridge nearly always involved the huge number of social clubs and crazy parties that a relatively small student body supported prior to the acceptance of women. I believe that Harvard students are more serious about their studies today than ever before.

I wish that Harvard Magazine and similar forums would take into account all the possibilities before pronouncing today's students worthy of yesterday's "gentleman's C's."

Katherine C. Raff '95
Chicago

I have never read how Roosevelt might have contracted the polio that he was stricken with at his home on

FDR in 1900, the year he entered Harvard. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; tinted by Jim Gipe.

Campobello, but I have a theory about it. He might have eaten contaminated soft-shell clams from one of the mud flats between Lubec, Maine, and Campobello, Canada. I understand he loved to eat steamer clams, and they are delicious from the areas of northern Maine and Canada.

In those days the shellfish sanitation programs of both the United States and Canada were practically nonexistent; few shellfish areas were classified for suitability for harvest. Lubec was a substantially populated fishing town, with raw sewage polluting the mud flats of the channel between the U.S. and Campobello sides.

Soft-shell clams are notorious for concentrating pathogenic microorganisms from contaminated water very quickly and to a much higher concentration than in the water. I suspect that FDR ate a sufficient quantity of contaminated clams to receive an infectious dose.

These observations are based on my 30 years of work with pollution and shellfish sanitation in the U.S. Public Health Service.

Santo A. Furfari, S.M. '59
East Greenwich, R.I.

Author John T. Bethell replies: biographer Geoffrey C. Ward, in A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt (1989), traces the incubation of Roosevelt's polio to his visit to Boy Scout camps at Bear Mountain, New York, on July 28, 1921. FDR was then president of the Boy Scout Foundation of Greater New York.

FDR's uncle, Frederic Adrian Delano, has his name spelled with and without the "k" in your article! It is something I notice as I live with it daily. My late husband was Frederic Delano Grant '39, Frederic A. Delano's grandson.

Madeleine B. Grant, M.A.T. '32
Wellesley Hills, Mass.

Pace John Bethell, not Yale nor any other university could have improved upon the Harvard LL.D. citation of Franklin D. Roosevelt-"Governor of New York; a statesman in whom is no guile."

Robert K. Merton, Ph.D. '32, founder of the sociology of the higher learning, long ago established the law: the higher the distinction of the university and the honorand, the briefer the citation.

Moreover, since the Yale 48-word citation was bestowed upon the same honorand at a still higher pinnacle of his career, its greater length must stand as evidence of the lower distinction of the institution.

Gerard Piel '37
New York City

Harvard's memorials to FDR, perhaps the most illustrious graduate of Harvard College, are clearly inadequate. If a significant number of alumni indicate their agreement with that statement and offer to help, I will undertake to organize an effort to establish a fitting memorial. Letters on this subject can be sent to me at my home, 65 Grove Street, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02181.

Jerome Grossman '38

Editor's note: John H. Hanselman, recording secretary of the University, notes that FDR "is honored in at least three ways within the University. First, the suite of rooms in Westmorly Hall of Adams House that he occupied as a student is marked with a plaque. Second, in the floor of the rotunda in the Kennedy School's Taubman Building, dedicated in part to the study of state and local government and of social policy, is inscribed a quotation from Roosevelt. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the class of 1904 endowed a scholarship in Harvard College on the occasion of its fiftieth reunion, called the Class of 1904 Franklin D. Roosevelt Scholarship Fund. This scholarship will preserve his memory in perpetuity."