Barbed Confetti

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, '04, was not there. Neither was honeymooning Son John, '38. But Harvard's reuning alumni had the Roosevelts very much in mind when they gathered in Soldiers Field last week for the annual class-day parade and confetti fight. They spoke their minds with missiles more punishing than confetti.

The first reunion class, '35, came as dictators, marching behind a German band. Some wore brown shirts, for Hitler; some black shirts, for Mussolini; some red shirts, for Stalin, and some the white shirt, white ducks and panama of Fisherman Roosevelt. They raised beer cans in a fascist salute. Said their placards: Frankie is just a lot of Frankfurter, Beware of Third Termites, When bigger and better dictators are made, he'll be a Harvard man.

On they came, class after class, holding aloft such jibes as The moribund life, How red the Roose, Richard Whitney, Franklin Roosevelt, Putzi Hanfstaengel--All good Harvard men--you can have them. Conspicuous was the class of '28, dressed as Snow White (9-year-old Class Baby Barbara Chase) and the 200 Dwarfs, because it carried no anti-Roosevelt placards. The class of '18, originally planning to play John Barleycorn in barrels, at the last moment added top hats and spats and called themselves Economic Royalists. A HARVARD MAN, said one of their signs, DID THIS TO US. Not to be outdone by their elders, Harvard's graduating seniors marched into the stadium chanting: "Breadline, here we come."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.