The Publisher by Alan Brinkley Read Free Book Online Page B

days”—and proposed getting “ten of the sure Bones men together to make it known that none of them would go Bones without me.” Harry was either deaf to or chose to ignore the condescension implicit in this implausible plan. It was, he said, “one of the greatest compliments I have ever received.” He declined Brit’s offer, however, arguing that “Bones meant everything for Yale, and that bucking it did no good for the college which means so much to us.” As with the
News
and the
Lit
, he again chose to see himself as one who looked “beyond the interests of the individual” to protect a larger good. When the
New York Times
—which regularly devoted substantial space to the social world of the Ivy League—published a story speculating about those likely to be chosen for Bones, Harry suffered over being mentioned as a “possibility” who would likely fail. (“I’m sorry I didn’t or rather won’t, make the grade,” he wrote miserably to his father. “With all the advantages I have had, it does not speak well for me not to come out on top.”) But he also happily reported campus gossip that both he and Brit were certain of selection. And he comforted himself that “what I shall never have to admit,—in fact, what it would not be true to say is this:—that in my own class I was not counted on as a ‘Bones’ man!” 42
    Tap Day, May 15, was carefully orchestrated to create excitement and drama. Late in the afternoon much of the student body gathered on the lawn in front of the imposing, windowless buildings of the senior societies to watch the nervous juniors, who waited along a fence nearby. The windows of surrounding buildings were crowded with observers from the faculty and the town. At the tolling of the chapel bells at 5:00 p.m., the doors of the three societies flew open; and the senior membersthreaded through the crowd, pounding the chosen juniors on their backs and telling them to return to their rooms to be informed of their induction. Harry’s apprehension grew as the Bones seniors plucked one after another of his classmates (Hadden among them) while passing him by. But at last, at 5:20, as he wrote the next day to his parents, “your elder son received a terrific smack across the shoulders, delivered him by Winter Mead, 1919, Captain of the Crew and President of Phi Beta Kappa, and a member of the so-called society of Skull and Bones. And you can easily imagine that said son upon being told to go to his room did so go, and did moreover vouch for his being Henry Robinson Luce, and did accept an election to the so-called society! … I am sure you understand what perfect satisfaction is mine.” (One of his first tasks as a member was to choose a secret “club name.” Luce chose “Baal,” an ancient Hebrew name for “Lord” or “Master.” Hadden chose “Caliban,” the feral, half-human servant in Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
. No one ever used Luce’s somewhat pretentious club name outside of Skull and Bones, but “Caliban” seemed so appropriate for Hadden that it stuck—until it was gradually replaced by the nickname “Bratch.”) 43
    Perhaps to compensate for the semester he had missed while in the army, Harry remained in New Haven during the summer after his junior year, enduring what he described as the “monotony” of courses at the law school. When the college reconvened in September, he stepped easily into his new role as one of the “big men” among the seniors. He continued to work hard at the
News
, both as an editor and editorial writer and as a supervisor of the newspaper’s business affairs. He joined the debating team. He took more challenging and interesting courses than he had in the past. He was particularly drawn to the English political theorist Harold Laski, who was teaching for the moment at Yale, and he wrote a senior thesis under Laski’s supervision titled “The Influence Exerted on the American People by Theodore Roosevelt During the Last Ten