Harvard v. Scrubwomen

Jokes live a long time at Harvard. Sometimes these jokes, especially cartoons in the Harvard Lampoon, which occasionally transcend decency, return from death to plague their perpetrators. A "Lampy'' cartoon of two dirty hogs "rooting for Princeton" did much to cause the not-yet-healed breach between Harvard and Princeton. Another cartoon last week brought the Lampoon's editors a threat of criminal action by the district attorney of Middlesex County.

Old as egg-throwing as a source of youthfully brutal humor* is the college scrubwoman, "goody," "biddy" or "P-lady." Harvard's scrubwomen became a cause celebre in the winter of 1929 when the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission complained that Harvard had for nine years paid its Widener Library scrubwomen but 35-c- an hour, whereas the legal minimum wage was 37-c-. The Treasurer of Harvard University appealed to the State Legislature, pleading that the women were given a 20-minute rest period, not docked for it. Last March, led by Corliss Lament, son of Morgan Partner Thomas William Lament, 52 Harvard alumni wrote an open letter to the University, asking that the women be paid 2-c- per hour back wages over the whole period. Harvard refused. Alumnus Lamont then organized the Harvard Scrubwomen Fund, raised $3,880, portioned it out last Christmas to the scrubwomen.

Undergraduate reactions have been vigorous. Even the comparatively dignified Harvard Crimson (daily) has published satiric verses on the scrub subject. When, last May, the Harvard Square Deal Association gave a benefit "Scrubwomen's Ball" for the Lamont Fund and got two of the women, Mrs. Mary Hogan and Mrs. Annie Mclntyre. to act as chaperons, six students attended in a buggy, one of them astride an old white horse.

Last week's cartoon (see cut) was another reaction to the Lamont Fund. The caption read: "With No Apologies to Mr. Lamont: the Alumni Do Right by the College Martyrs."

* Last week James Severy Angier, Harvard freshman, son of Yale's onetime Dean of Freshmen Roswell Parker Angier, was suspended for his part in grape-fruiting Crooner Rudy Vallee at a Boston theatre last month.

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