The Harvard Crimson: Its notorious history

Harvard University is arguably the premier institution of higher learning in the U.S. Seven U.S Presidents have been Harvard Alumni;  John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt,  John F. Kennedy (Business Editor of The Crimson), George W. Bush (M.B.A. ’75) and Barack Obama(J.D ’91) all boast  Harvard degrees.

I wonder if the parents who send their young ones to Harvard University (and shell out upwards of $40,000 a year in tuition) are aware of the history of its famous student publication, The Harvard Crimson? Do you suppose that these parents are familiar with the student newspaper’s historic support for fascist dictators and genocidal Marxist revolutionaries?

Here’s a largely forgotten story about The Crimson’s enthusiastic celebration of Nazi Germany at their 1934 Class Reunion.

“Ernst F. Sedgwick Hanfstaengl, known as “Putzi,” was a popular member of the Harvard Class of 1909. He was a large, jolly fellow who wrote a song in the Hasty Pudding show his senior year. His father was a Munich art dealer and his mother a blue-blooded Bostonian. Young Hanfstaengl returned to Germany in 1921.

“A year later, I ran into the man who has saved Germany and civilization — Adolf Hitler,” he wrote in his 25th anniversary report. After the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler hid at Hanfstaengl’s villa outside Munich, and the two men collaborated on the Nazi marching song, “The German Storm.” Hanfstaengl became Hitler’s press secretary.

But the editors of the Crimson suggested that Harvard grant him an honorary degree as a representative “of a friendly country, which happens to be a great world power.” There were indeed no Jews, blacks, or women on the Crimson editorial board in those days.”

I suppose that some of this kind of enthusiasm for totalitarian regimes may be on display regarding their support for the murderous Khmer Rouge and their “social change.” Witness the rationalization on display in their response to reports that maybe “democratic socialism” isn’t all its cracked up to be.

There are reports that in the countryside all movement across provincial boundaries in prohibited and that in some provinces possession of the old Cambodian currency, the rien, is punishable by death. According to the New York Times, one high ranking official administering the province of Battambang recently said that “the law now is the law of the soldier, the law of the gun.”

These reports are sporadic and they can not reflect the complete truth about the situation in Cambodia. If they are true, these actions must be condemned. The new government of Cambodia may have to resort to strong measures against a few to gain democratic socialism for all Cambodians. And we support the United Front in the pursuit of its presently stated goals.

So see? Parents can stop worrying about their kids when they go off to college. The masters at Harvard are watching out for your kids while they’re away. See! They’re just keeping the tradition alive.

*FYI: the seal featured in this post is the original Harvard seal containing the first Harvard motto “Christos et Ecclessia” Christ and Church.