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PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Harvard's Glory At Age 350 And The Disappearing Mark Of Cain

This is a yearmarked by many impor-
tant anniversaries. Collectively, they are
historiography on a high level.
Currently, the limelight is on Har-
vard. The New York Times Magazine Sec-
tion, July 20, features the tribute entitled
"The Harvard Factor: The university
celebrates its 350th anniversary."
NYTimes reporter Colin Campbell
authored the fascinating story sum-
marized in the subtitle as: "Celebrating
its 350th birthday, America's oldest uni-
versity still casts a spell over the country,
affecting education, government, the sci-
ences and the arts."
Jews of great prominence were factors
in this story and continue to share in its
glory and influence. In every category
listed by Campbell there are Jewish par-
ticipants.
Yet there was one blemish which
created a crisis and caused a scandal in
this country. Campbell makes mention of
it in his important NYTimes essay in
which he states:

A century ago, 80 percent of
Harvard's freshmen came from
prep schools, and even in the early
1950s private schools prepared
half the freshmen. Black students
a century ago were very rare.
Jewish students were less so and
eventually entered Harvard in
sizable numbers; they did so well
that an informal (and deeply re-
sented) quota on Jewish students

was instituted in the 1920s during
the presidency of A. Lawrence
Lowell.
After World War II, the admis-
sions policy opened wide. During
the 1950s, when Nathan Marsha
Pusey was president, Harvard in-
troduced a "need-blind" admis-
sions policy that, in theory, made
family wealth completely irrele-
vant.

Soon, the Harvard incident which was
destined to be labeled "scandal" began to
be forgotten. But 20 years later, when
Lowell died, it was in the limelight in full
force. It served as an admonition that
prejudice by academicians should not be
ignored. A. Lawrence Lowell died Jan. 6,
1943. I reviewed the case in which he was
involved in a nationally-syndicated arti-
cle. On Feb. 26, 1943, Congress Weekly
and a score of newspapers including The
Detroit Jewish News published the article
entitled "Recalling the Harvard Scandal."
My article revealed a shocking incident
that also occurred at the time at the Uni-
versity of Michigan. The following is the
full text of my article:

The death of A. Lawrence
Lowell, president emeritus of
Harvard University, coincides
with the 20th anniversary of an in-
cident which shocked the con-
science of Americans and which
equaled in intensity of feeling

Religious Diversions Must Not
Lead to Disunity and Chaos

ous.

Comparisons are proverbially odi-

By the same token, an attempt to
equate religiously ideological concepts
could prove ludicrous.
Nevertheless, there are occurences
affecting partnerships in religious
societies that merit serious considera-
tion.
Leading such considerations are de-
cisions in the ecumenical, interdenomi-
national and Jewish spheres.
Consider the latest expansionist de-
cision of the National Conference of
Christians and Jews. Organized as the
great Good Will movement in an era
when it was necessary to mobilize
against emerging bigotries, with an em-
phasis on battling anti-Semitism, the
NCCJ became the pioneering ecumeni-
cal aim of justice-loving Americans of
the three major faiths in this country.
There is no doubt about its having been
the pioneer in ecumenism, but the par-
ticipants were limited to the Christians
and Jews.
Several years ago there was a pro-
test from Islamic leaders, criticizing the
limitations and the omission of the Mos-
lem community from a movement that
arose under the aspiring aim of assuring
Good Will for all. Suspicious of the ef-
fects of Middle Eastern prejudices, the
legacies of hatreds in some areas of the
world of some Christians against Mos-
lems may have been the cause.
Therefore, discussions arose here
over the problem and the Islamic chal-
lenge. It led to the important decision to
change the name of the significant De-
troit ecumenical agency to the Greater
Detroit Interfaith Round Table of the
National Conference of Christians and
Jews. The national affiliation is not af-
fected and the local appeal to interfaith
unity assumes realism.

2

Friday, August 1, 1986

Leonard Simons

It is to the credit of Leonard N. Si-
mons that the new name of the Detroit
Round Table comes into effect. The adop-
tion of new aims by the Detroit Round
Table has great significance. The new
roles are officially defined by the Detroit
branch of the National Conference of
Christians and Jews as follows:

• To provide a forum for
leaders from the Muslim, Chris-
tian and Jewish communities to
discuss theological and social-
cultural issues in an effort to edu-
cate each other on Jewish, Chris-

Continued on Page 30

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

among Jews the Ford anti-Semitic
outbursts and the more recent
Coughlinite campaigns of bigotry.
This incident which occurred
in October, 1933, was so shocking
in its extreme departure from the
accepted American policies of
non-discrimination that it was
given the title, "The Harvard
Scandal" and revolved around the
revealed attempt to limit the
number of Jewish students
attending Harvard University. It
reached its climax on Jan. 14,
1923, at a meeting of the Macca-
beans, a Men's Club of Temple Is-
rael, New York, of which Dr. Louis
I. Newman was the rabbi. A man
who claimed to be a Harvard
graduate made the statement that
President Lowell himself had told
him that he takes full credit for the
plan to limit the number of Jews
seeking admission to Harvard and
he quoted the late Dr. Lowell as
having made the following predic-
tions:
1. That within 20 years the
United States would see the same
conditions as existed in central
Europe at that time with blood
being spilled as a result of anti-
Semitism.
2. That the time will come
when the Jews will be treated in
the same way as the negro in the
South.
The man who made these
charges was later revealed to be
Victor Kramer, a Harvard
graduate, who charged that the
then President Lowell of Harvard
not only made these predictions
but that he advised Jews to drop
their faith, and that he asserted
that Jews cannot be Americans as
long as they retained their faith.
It is interesting to note
President Lowell not only denied
his attack upon the Jews but at-
tempts were even made to dis-
prove that Mr. Kramer was a Har-
vard graduate. But Kramer's re-
cord at Harvard was definitely es-
tablished and it is recorded that
after his discharge from the army
after the last war he was
graduated in 1920 as of the class of
1918.
This incident, the facts of
which even today shock the im-
agination, had many interesting
sidelights which have a bearing on
our own experiences in this year
when the Lowell predictions of
pogroms in America were sup-
posed to materialize. Mr. Kramer
was on a New Haven train which
was, delayed for six hours on its
way to New York. He occupied a
seat next to President Lowell and
the conversation which filled the
time of train delay was animated
by a discussion of the Jewish
problem. Lowell attacked the
Jeiws for remaining apart and for
not intermarrying and he warned
that unless they merged with the
lion-Jews prejudice would in-
crease. Dr. Lowell even went so
far as to state that the fact that the
Jews no longer tried to proselytize
Christians indicates that the
Jewish religion no longer is neces-
sary.
A careful re-reading of the re-
cord of this incident leaves one
bewildered. Mr. Kramer revealed
that President Lowell's bitterness
against the Jews "which gnawed
at his very heart" left him shocked

A. Lawrence Lowell:
Quotas at Harvard

especially in view of- the eminent
educator's frankness. A Brown
University graduate, a naval offi-
cer, entered into the discussion
and apparently supported Dr.
Lowell. Mr. Kramer made this
statement: "When the last words
were exchanged near the Informa-
tion Tower at Grand Central Sta-
tion, he stood bewildered. It was
inconceivable that the President
of Harvard University had just left
my side."
The Ford incident, the rise of a
new type of anti-Semitism under
the guidance of a Father Coughlin,
have caused us to forget this inci-
dent. Nevertheless, this occur-
rence was so distressing a part of
the more wide-spread movement
to limit Jewish attendance in
American universities that it is
well for us to look into the back-
ground of it in order that we may
better understand similar situa-
tions which have plagued our stu-
dents in American colleges.
Mr. Kramer back in 1923
quoted President Lowell as mak-
ing assertions which also included
the following:
1. A concentration of Jews at
a college is an evil to the college,
the nation and the Jews. He in-
sisted that the problem can be
solved not by improving the qual-
ity of the Jewish students but by
cutting down their quantity.
2. The only way out for Jews
is to assimilate completely and
rapidly.
3. The Harvard Menorah
Society should be abandoned and
the Jewish fraternities abolished.
He insisted that Jewish students
should not herd together but
should seek companionship in
Gentile circles.,

4. The Jewish faith should be
gradually abandoned and Jewish
graduates should marry Christian
girls.
5. The Jewish press — Dr.
Lowell referred to it as "Jew
press" — should not claim pride in

Continued on Page 30

