Word: monroe
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Quite a few observers thought that the Monro Doctrine (as the Record American christened it) and the five-page medical report from the University Health Services that accompanied it were the result of outside pressure on the University to do something about drug abuse in the Yard. The press and maybe the alumni, they said, are forcing Monro to take a stand against drugs once and for all, and Monro must respond to get Harvard off the hook. Or, just as likely, they said, the cops and the feds are planning a big raid on the University, and Monro wants...
...squad was sufficient to take care of the problem. The Council voted him a few extra men for the drug squad, anyway, but the Cambridge police's attitude did not appear belligerent toward the University at all. The area's one agent from the Federal Narcotics Bureau never warned Monro about controlling drug traffic at Harvard either...
Still, somewhere in the back of Monro's head there was probably the idea that what happened at those other Ivy colleges might happen here. At Princeton the dean, informed by the authorities to clean his own house or they would do it for him, called the known drug users there to his office and told them to "throw the stuff in the river" or there would be trouble. Some did, but seven were arrested, and the New York Daily News had a field...
Certainly, Monro was being pressured to state clearly and publicly the University's position on drugs. But the pressure was coming from the inside, not from the outside. F. Skiddy von Stade Jr. '38, dean of freshmen, wanted something done. So did some Masters on the Administrative Board. Monro's attitude had been that a letter might cut off communication between the College and the drug users. But there was not much communication anyway...
...Monro gave in. He may have been leery of the Boston papers turning his letter into another blow-up like the 1963 sex scandal. But he wrote it anyway, in no uncertain terms (Though perhaps, as some have said with some uncertain logic. Why say drugs are a "waste of time"? Isn't drinking or partying a "waste of time" too?). "It was pure Monro," one Administration official said...