EXTENDED CLUB HISTORY
The following essay on the history of
the Harvard Republican Club was written by HRC Membership Director
('03-'04) Stephanie Kendall '05.
The Honorable Theodore Roosevelt and soon to be president of the United
States wrote to Harvard Republicans in 1888: “I am now engaged every
night to speak in New York, and so am unable to come over as you
request. I am really extremely sorry, for I should particularly like to
be present at a meeting of the Republicans under the auspices of dear
old alma mater. I am more than glad to see Harvard College Republicans
keeping Harvard where she belongs.”(1) Unfortunately, Teddy Roosevelt
was unable to attend to the founding meeting of the Harvard Republican
Club, but 4,500 came to Tremont Temple in Boston on November 2, 1888
for the club’s public meeting. Filling not only Tremont Temple, but
also an additional overflow hall, the meeting’s turnout exceeded the
organizers’ expectations. The event drew prominent national Republicans
to speak and marked the beginning of collegiate Republican
organizations. Students decided to organize the club when they felt
actions by some “put the university in a false position, namely as
being largely in favor of the democratic party.”(2) Republican students
took a stand in the fall semester of 1888 against such actions. The
founding of the Harvard Republican Club was a grassroots movement by
students to address what they saw as a violation of university
principles. The grand founding served three purposes: to express the
political opinion of the majority of students – what they saw as
Harvard’s true political colors, to protest the breach of academic
freedom, and to campaign for Republican presidential candidate Benjamin
Harrison. The club is now 115 years strong, and its student-driven
enthusiastic spirit continues into modern times.
The 1888 presidential campaign had captured the interest and energy of
Harvard. The contest was between President Grover Cleveland, the
Democrat incumbent, who favored tariff reform in the direction of free
trade and Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison, who vowed to
continue to protect American industry from competition from foreign
goods. Ten days prior to the public meeting of the Republican Club, a
very different gathering was held at Tremont Temple. A newspaper
article headlined “The Real Harvard” explains that after the
“tremendous” meeting of the Republican club, the earlier meeting, which
was “designed to show that the old university had joined hands with the
party of Gorman, Cleveland, Barnum, Cunniff and Maguire,” will soon be
forgotten.(3) The Harvard tariff reform meeting had come across as a
Harvard endorsement for free trade and a Cleveland presidency, which
upset Republicans and sparked them to respond. William C. Boyden, the
first President of the Harvard Republican Club, said, “Our club had its
beginning in an organization to answer the impression which went forth
from the Harvard tariff reform meeting. You all heard extensively after
that meeting, that the educated sentiment of the country was away from
Republicanism.”(4) The Republican students of Harvard did not wish for
this to be the impression of Harvard’s politics. In fact, they did not
wish for there to an “official” position of the University at all,
which violated a long-standing principle of Harvard not taking sides in
national politics. However, they believed “if it was necessary for
Harvard to go into politics, she should be fairly represented.”(5) The
former Governor of Massachusetts, George D. Robinson, who spoke at the
founding meeting agreed, “A short time since, less than two weeks,
gentlemen from this platform assumed to speak for the educated people
of the country. They pretended that from themselves came the utterance
for our old alma mater. But we have found, as we investigated, that it
was only a trifling minority that spoke.”(6) One major purpose of the
meeting was to show that not only did the tariff reform meeting speak
not speak for Harvard, but also a majority of Harvard students took the
opposite stance.
The Republican proponents of Protectionism took no small steps to
correct the impression of Harvard, but instead they held an impressive
meeting that left few in attendance with doubts “as to the party to
which the great bulk of Harvard influence given.”(7) The original hall
Tremont Temple and the overflow hall the Meionaon were both quickly
filled to capacity, and the Boston Daily Advertiser reported that “a
line of policeman had to be stretched along the sidewalk to prevent
overcrowding.”(8) The enthusiastic crowd stood and waved flags while
they sang “Fair Harvard” with the accompaniment of Baldwin’s Cadet Band
as the speakers rose to the platform and each speaker was greeted with
the Harvard Rah! Rah! Rah! before he spoke. The spirit of the meeting
was apparent: “It was emphatically a students’ meeting.”(9) The crowd
remained enthusiastic through the three and a quarter hour long meeting
for which even the ladies gallery was full, prompting the Advertiser to
remark, “It was the most attractive meeting of the campaign.”(10)
Republican Club President Boyden reported at the meeting: “The poll of
Harvard College gave a Republican plurality of 160, and this
magnificent meeting shows where the educated sentiment of Harvard
is.”(11) The meeting showed that contrary to the earlier declaration of
the tariff reform group, most of Harvard students were Republican, not
Democratic. This was a clear intention of the meeting. The Advertiser
reported of the tone of the meeting, “It was the reply, the indignant
response to a slur, the declaration that a great body of men had been
misrepresented. It was a retort, a retort courteous but
unmistakable.”(12) Senate Leader Honorable George F. Hoar began his
speech to the intensely enthusiastic students, “One of the speakers at
a meeting held here ten days ago told his audience that Harvard
welcomed them that night to stand with her for Grover Cleveland. You
and I are here to deny that proposition. [Laughter and Applause]”(13)
Senator Hoar wanted to make it clear that the majority of Harvard
students did not support President Cleveland in his re-election bid. He
was concerned that some thought that the country ought be governed by a
“partnership, consisting of the Solid South, Tammany Hall, the liquor
saloons and criminal places of the great cities, and Harvard
College.”(14) Hoar and other speakers at the meeting made it
emphatically clear that those who represented Harvard as leaning
Democratic were misrepresenting the majority of undergraduates and
graduate students. They were misrepresenting the alumni who were
involved in speaking at and organizing the meeting. Harvard did not
belong in dirty politics or the company of Democrats. Hoar continues,
“Our venerable and beloved mother will be found in no such company.
[Laughter] That discreet matron never goes to such places. She never
will go there, unless it be to reclaim and rescue some of her wandering
sons who have gone astray.”(15)
Perhaps more importantly than making the political opinions of the
majority of the students heard, a purpose of the meeting was to
reprimand and correct a violation of the college’s tradition of
academic freedom. The students and speakers believed they were involved
in an important mission to stop Harvard’s meddling in taking political
stances. For the sake of Harvard’s future and for the separation of
academia from national politics, the students and the speakers make
their collective voice heard. Harvard graduate and Congressman Henry
Cabot Lodge spoke most eloquently and extensively against the College
supporting one particular party:
Mr. Chairman and Ladies and gentlemen: a meeting in the name of Harvard
was held in this hall a few days ago to advocate the election of Grover
Cleveland…..We do not gather here to assert that we are the sole and
only representatives of the college. All that we lay claim to is the
right, common to all her sons, to serve honor, and defend her with
loyalty and truth. [Applause] We do not come to give out to the world
that Harvard College supports the party to which we belong. Were such
the purpose of this meeting I for one would have no part or lot in it.
We gather here to protest in the only way open to us against the
attempt which has been made to drag the college into politics, and to
use her honored name as a make-weight in party strife. [Applause and
Cheers] We are not here to declare that the college is Republican, but
to stamp as utterly false the assumption that our beloved alma mater is
bound to the wheels of the chariot which carries the political fortunes
of Grover Cleveland.(16)
Lodge felt it extremely important to point out that this meeting,
although enthusiastically Republican, was not to lay claim that the
college’s official position was on the Republican side. Instead, he was
protesting the actions of the other side that did make such a claim.
Granted, in order to protest the violation of college tradition, the
organizers made quite a scene of their Republicanism and went to great
lengths to declare that the student body was more Republican.
It was more important than the results of this one election, for Lodge
at least, to make certain that Harvard did not get into the business of
supporting presidential candidates and becoming unnecessarily involved
in national politics. A newspaper account reports that organizers were
careful to make clear that they were protesting the involvement of the
college in politics: “Last night’s speakers were scrupulous to disclaim
any purpose to represent their alma mater as an attachment to either
party…”(17) The Republican Club did not attempt to speak on behalf of
the college, but did make go to great lengths to show that the student
body was more Republican. The students felt obligated to take action
after the actions of the tariff reform supporters seemed to suggest
that Harvard was taking a Democratic stance. It was not, however, the
Republicans desire to bring the college into politics. One newspaper
reports, “The students who are active in the matter would have much
preferred not to take any action as students of the university, but
inasmuch as the action of the Harvard Tariff Reform Association has put
the university in a false position” the students felt they had no
choice but to voice their distaste for the Association’s
declaration.(18) The students wanted to protect the school from taking
sides and involving itself in politics.
Harvard President Derek Bok, many years later, wrote about the need to
protect academic freedom at universities. He writes that in the
appointments process it is important to examine the ability of
candidates to perform academic and administrative functions, but “the
problem is to reconcile such scrutiny with the historic reluctance to
endanger academic freedom and risk the errors, the controversies, and
the external pressures that can so easily result whenever we begin to
assess the qualifications of candidates by judging their opinions on
controversial issues of a political, economic, or moral nature.”(19)
Bok’s desire to protect the university from taking political or moral
stances against certain potential faculty appointments is based in the
tradition of the university being separate from being mired in
politics. The basis for academic freedom is the desire to build the
best university possible without harming free inquiry. This can only be
achieved when the university stays out of political debates. The
students involved in the founding of the Republican Club believed they
were acting with this noble purpose in mind. They did not want the
university to get into the habit of taking strong political stances,
which would endanger the tradition of a university focused on learning
and excellence not on politics. Though this was not the only reason for
which they acted, it was the most important one.
The third purpose of the founding of the Republican Club and its public
meeting was to campaign in the close presidential election for General
Benjamin Harrison. The issues in the election were divided sharply
along North/South lines. Loosening tariffs was opposed in the more
industrial North, but supported in the more agricultural South. Another
major issue for some Republicans was the South’s repression of
African-American votes. Republicans felt that elections were not honest
when the votes of one race were not being included in the South. The
public meeting of the Republican Club was a platform for these campaign
issues and an opportunity to cheer on the candidate of those in
attendance – Ben Harrison. The importance of the meeting as a campaign
event may come as no surprise considering the closeness of the election
and impressiveness of the founding meeting. One newspaper went so far
as to say, “The Harvard College Republican meeting at Tremont Temple
last evening was one of the greatest successes of the campaign.”(20)
The prominence of Harvard in the election speaks to the even greater
reason why the opinion of the university and the student body mattered
in the national scene. Several speakers spoke out of the two important
issues in the campaign. Colonel Nathaniel P. Hallowell, who was a
companion of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw in leading the 54th regiment
during the Civil War, spoke about the need for the Republicans in the
North to reach out to the South. He said, “The New South, with her
factories and railways, is a child of the North. She will not submit to
free trade, nor will she permit her laborers to be cheated out of their
political rights by any party.”(21) Reverend Edward Everett Hale also
spoke on the issue of political rights in the South and the prominence
of Harvard men in the fight for liberty. He speaks of Harvard, “She
ought to say, as I think she will say to-night to this country, that
while the elegance of her accomplishments was never so finished as it
is now, while the range of her studies was never more broad, the
instincts of her sons were as true to freedom as they were in the days
of the stamp act or Fort Wagner.”(22) Though it is difficult to say
whether this meeting made a difference in the election, Ben Harrison
was the eventual electoral victor, though Cleveland won the popular
vote. The country was largely divided in half between North and South
upon the highly regional issues decided by the campaign. The following
map shows the final results of the election. Harrison is shown in red
and Cleveland in green.(23)
The Republican Club’s conflict with the university continued beyond its
original founding act. In 1894 the club was blocked from reserving
Sander’s Theater for a speech by now Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. The
club, which the Boston Journal described as “a gingerly and active body
” and all other political groups were no longer allowed to use any
college hall or room for political purposes by vote of the corporation
(this included Sever Hall, where the club routinely held meetings).(24)
This rule only applied to the Republican Club, however, because all
other political clubs had disbanded. President Eliot was largely blamed
for the move, and some believed he may have been acting to keep the
university completely non-partisan. A member of the Harvard Republican
Club when presented with this possibility responded, “There are a great
many more men, however, that think a less frequent expression of his
own partisan sympathies would accomplish more toward such a
result.”(25) Despite the setback this move caused, the club vowed to
find another off-campus location to conduct their activities. They
would not let conflicts with the university and the disappearance of
other political clubs on campus dampen their spirit and resolve.
Though the issues of the Republican Party changed through the years,
the Harvard Republican Club has continued for 115 years. More often
than not, it has had strained relations with the university and has
sustained itself as a counter-opinion through times of majority student
support and when they existed in the minority. In more modern times,
the proportion of Republican students has shrunk, but the same
grassroots enthusiasm has remained strong. In 1892, the Republican Club
met Harvard Square in Parade Cap and Gown to watch the election
returns.(26) In 1952, watching election returns was slightly modernized
with an event that boasted dancing and free beer.(27) The club in the
1950’s continued to hold big speaking events just like the original
club, but it seems that social events expanded slightly including one
particularly interesting flyer that spoke of a mixer with the “Lovely
Lonely Ladies of Wellesley.”(28) Faced with an increasingly liberal
campus Crimson, the Republican Club published its own weekly newspaper
with a more conservative bent, The Harvard Times-Republican. The
Harvard Times-Republican reported in September of 1956 that the
Republican Club was largest of the political groups on campus.(29) As
Harvard became occupied with more Democrats, the Republican Club
remained active and continued to provide an alternative opinion on
campus. The image of Harvard to the outside world was increasingly
liberal, which prompted students and alumni of the Harvard Republican
Club to have a rally in Washington to prove that there is a strong and
enthusiastic group of Republicans at Harvard. In a move eerily similar
to the club’s founding, the Republicans organized to “dispel the
impression that Harvard produces only Democrats.”(30) On June 11th,
students and alumni gathered in Washington, DC to prove their alma
mater bipartisan with a luncheon sponsored by Republican Senator
Leverett Saltonstall in the Senate reception hall.
In 2004, the club remains an active and enthusiastic grassroots student
effort to provide a counter-opinion on Harvard’s campus. The club
continues to hold speaking events and debates. Its founders would
likely be proud to hear that for two years running the Harvard
Republican Club has even held the time-honored Republican tradition of
a Lincoln Day Dinner in Eliot Dining Hall. Interestingly, the Harvard
Republican Club recently debated the Harvard Democrats on the very
issue that sparked the founding of the organization – trade. This time,
Republicans fought vehemently on the side of free trade with no
regulations whatsoever. It seems that while the specific issues for
which the Republicans at Harvard fight are dramatically different, the
reasons for which they continue to raise their voices remain the same.
It is likely the enthusiastic student spirit that has sustained the
club for 115 years. In first words of the first President William C.
Boyden at the first meeting of the Harvard Republican Club, for these
115 years, they’ve just tried to show: “There are some Republicans at
Harvard.”(31)
1. Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to T.H. Gage, Jr., November 1, 1888,
“Harvard Republican Club” Harvard University Archives: HUD.
2. Newspaper article “Harvard Republicans.” October 24, 1888, “Harvard
Republican Club” Harvard University Archives: HUD.
3. Newspaper Article, “The Real Harvard” November 3, 1888, “Harvard
Republican Club,” Harvard University Archives: HUD.
4. Address of W.C. Boyden. Report of the Proceedings of the Harvard
Republican Meeting held at Tremont Temple, Boston Friday evening
November 2, 1888. William H. Wheeler, Printer: Cambridge, 1889.
“Harvard Republican Club,” Harvard University Archives: HUD.
5. Introduction. Ibid.
6. Address of the Hon. George D. Robinson. Report of the Proceedings of
the Harvard Republican Meeting held at Tremont Temple, Boston Friday
evening November 2, 1888.
7. “The Real Harvard.”
8. “What Harvard Says.” Boston Daily Advertiser. November 3, 1888.
“Harvard Republican Club” Harvard University Archives: HUD.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Boyden.
12. Advertiser.
13. George F. Hoar, Report of the Proceedings of the Harvard Republican
Meeting held at Tremont Temple.
14. Ibid.
15. Hoar.
16. Henry Cabot Lodge, Report of the Proceedings of the Harvard
Republican Meeting held at Tremont Temple.
17. “The Real Harvard.”
18. “Harvard Republicans” October 24, 1888.
19. Derek Bok. “Reflections on Academic Freedom: An Open Letter to the
Harvard Community.” Supplement to the Harvard University Gazette. April
11, 1980.
20. “The Real Harvard.”
21. Nathaniel P. Hallowell, Report of the Proceedings of the Harvard
Republican Meeting held at Tremont Temple.
22. Edward Everett Hale, Report of the Proceedings of the Harvard
Republican Meeting held at Tremont Temple.
23. Map of the Presidential Election of 1888. Department of the Interior
24. “Gagged.” Boston Journal. May 4, 1894, “Harvard Republican Club”
Harvard University Archives: HUD.
25. Boston Journal.
26. Flyer. “Harvard Republican Club” Harvard University Archives: HUD.
27. Flyer. “Harvard Young Republicans Club” Harvard University
Archives: HUD.
28. Ibid.
29. The Harvard Times-Republican. September 1956. “Harvard
Times-Republican” Harvard University Archives: HUD.
30. “Harvard GOP’s To Hold Rally in Washington.” The Boston Globe,
Thursday April 5, 1962. “Harvard Young Republican Club” Harvard
University Archives: HUD.
31. Boyden.
