The Pore

Opposite the main entrance to Harvard Yard, on Cambridge's Massachusetts Avenue, stands an old four-story, buff brick building. Its first floor is occupied by a haberdasher's shop. Next to the shop is a big black door with gleaming brass street numbers--1324. Most passers-by never notice it. But one night last week important business was afoot at No. 1324 Massachusetts Ave. The big black door swung open ten times, each time admitting a blindfolded youth and an escort. These couples marched up the creaky steps, stood at last in a place where, in its long history, few ordinary mortals had set foot. The place: Harvard's Porcellian Club, other wise known as P.C. or "the Pore."

To many a Harvardman the Pore is only a name. But the blindfolded initiates -- among whom were Thomas Gardiner, son of the Pore's grand marshal, and R. Fulton Cutting 2nd -- knew that they had entered one of the world's most exclusive clubs. Here had fraternized some of the bluest U. S. bloods -- nine Adamses, seven Lowells, eleven Cabots. If the Lowells speak only to the Cabots and the Cabots only to God, the Pore is where they hold their tete-`a-tetes.

Next to Phi Beta Kappa, the Pore is Harvard's oldest club. Best-documented version of its founding: about 1790 a group of convivial undergraduates, who were wont to dine on roast pig at Abel Moore's tavern, formed the Pig Club, met weekly for "that kind of enjoyment to be derived from eating and drinking." Later the club lengthened its name, adopted a Latin motto -- Dum vivimus vivamus ("While we live, let's enjoy it") -- and merged with a rival crowd called The Knights of the Square Table.

The Pore had as members James Russell Lowell, the two famed Oliver Wendell Holmeses (the author of Autocrat of the Breakfast Table and the Supreme Court Justice), Owen Wister, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President Theodore Roosevelt (the Franklin Roosevelts go Fly Club). Among its living members are Massachusetts' Governor Leverett Saltonstall, Congressman Hamilton Fish, Yachtsman Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, Poloist Thomas Hitchcock Jr., U. S. Ambassador to Italy William Phillips, Journalist Joseph Alsop, and Richard Whitney, now of Sing Sing Prison, of whom all good Porkies prefer not to speak. The Pore is very much a family affair. Upon its roster, generation after generation, appear the same proud Boston names--Adams, Ames, Amory, Cabot, Gushing, etc. Some years ago three great Massachusetts surnames were combined in one Porcellian: Endicott Peabody Saltonstall. When Endicott Peabody Saltonstall was appointed district attorney of Middlesex County, Irish Politician James Michael Curley exclaimed: "Good God, all three of them!"

Harvard has eight "final" clubs, whose members set the pace for the Harvard accent, Harvard "indifference." The Pore is the most exclusive and most awesome of the eight. Preliminary skimming is performed by the Hasty Pudding Club, which each year elects 45 sophomores as Harvard's social cream. The final clubs pick most of their members from the Pudding. The Pore is most likely to elect the sons and relatives of old Porkies, closely examines each candidate's family tree. But congeniality counts as much as pedigree, and the three to 18 members whom the Pore elects from each class must be jolly good fellows. (Its definition of good fellowship, the leftist Harvard Progressive recently remarked, "rests on a good liquor capacity and a full agreement on the meaning of the word 'meatball.' ") The Pore abounds in crew men and polo players, seldom picks football players or Crimson editors.

Harvard's new house plan, by which undergraduates are expected to eat in the houses, has not changed Porkies' habits: they still have dinner every evening at the club. There they solemnly observe certain traditions. One of these is a crew song. At a certain point, as they sing "I float like a feather," members whip handkerchiefs out of their pockets and toss them into the air to float.

A Porcellian wears a small gold pig on his watch chain, a long tweed jacket, tight flannel pants and a short haircut, generally contents himself with a gentleman's three Cs and a D in his studies. Most inviolable tradition: Once a Porcellian always a Porcellian. Porkies keep up their Porkie friendships all their lives, go back religiously to the annual Porkie banquet at which new members are initiated. When a Porkie marries, fellow Porkies always gather round him after the ceremony and sing the club song. From the Pore's clubrooms, non-Porcellians are religiously excluded. In the last 20 years only five men have been excepted from this rule: the Prince of Wales, Al Smith, Herbert Hoover, under Secretary of the Treasury Roswell Magill and onetime Budget Director Lew Douglas, who were wined & dined in the club.

Last week the Pore's new members, un-blindfolded, stole eager glances around their sanctum: at the pair of ivory tusks, brought by Teddy Roosevelt from Africa, the curios gathered from the corners of the earth by many another Porkie, the "busybodies" (V-shaped mirrors) at the windows by which Porkies may sit in their chairs and watch the street, the Long Room, lined from floor to ceiling with books, the banquet chairs, each with the name plate of its donor on the back. Presiding at the banquet was the Pore's grand marshal, Maine's ex-Governor William Tudor Gardiner. On this first occasion, the new members were allowed to drink only sherry.

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