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 téte-à-tétes.
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!"