Word: fdr
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...late spring 1901, for instance, just a few days after FDR's election to the paper, disaster of a sort struck--The Harvard Lampoon issued it first-ever parody of The Crimson, a stinging sheet playing on the stolid greyness that was the paper's hallmark in its early days. The lead story discussed in excruciating detail the replacement of one oarsman with another; buried beneath it was a one-paragraph item headlined "A Dangerous Attempt." A passerby, the item informed readers, had noticed a lighted fuse attached to Memorial Hall; at its end was enough pieric acid not only...
...FDR later wrote that at the time "there was much feeling owing to the fact that one of our editors was largely responsible for the Lampoon's outrage, but this was also a decided crumb of comfort, and the joke was too good to leave any ill will." Forty years later, when a group of Lampoon grads reissued the parody and sent the White House a copy, Roosevelt replied, "I myself, still a freshman, had been elected an Editor of The Crimson two or three days before, and my rage at the hoax was only equalled by the rage...
...though, that the editors didn't spend a good deal of time socializing. Indeed, the next fall (when sophomore Roosevelt began his climb up the Crimson heirarchy with his election as secretary), the Crimson decided to move its office to the brand new Union. There were only two worries, FDR recalled later. "There was much fear expressed that the new quartrers would take away the esprit de corps which had grown up in the old Sanctum, and also that no punch-nights could be held in the Union. Both fears proved groundless...
...predecessors, and his successors from many years to come, he followed a standard principle in assigning articles and dummying his front page--concentrate on sports. Four days out of five a sports story led the paper; the Crimson, for instance, covered in detail every practice of the football team. FDR seemed to realize that the emphasis on athletics could get out of hand: once, trying in an editorial to drum up attendance at a lecture, he wrote, "In these days of strenuous athletics and other somewhat unacademic pursuits a good many people wonder whether the modern young man goes...
...indefatigable booster, FDR spent much of his editorial venom on those men who lounged about their rooms, not attending practice to cheer on the football team, not coming out for various squads, and not listening to speeches. One of his reading period papers featured this appeal: "It seems a pity that more men do not realize the pleasures and benefits to be had from membership in one of the various musical organizations in the University. The Freshman Glee, Banjo and Mandolin clubs, which practice through the winter and give three or four concerts shortly after the spring recess, offer...