Corporation Withholds Its Permission for Browder Speech, Answers Tenure Critics

Permission to sponsor a lecture by Earl Browder was "withheld" from the John Reed Society by the Corporation at its meeting yesterday until the problem of granting the use of halls was "further explored by a special committee of the Corporation meeting with members of the Faculties," the Corporation announced last night.

In its announcement the Corporation reaffirmed its policy "of permitting all views to be presented at meetings of students held in Harvard buildings," and went on to say that the John Reed Society could have "another member of the Communist Party speak as soon as they desired."

The Executive Committee of the John Reed Society last night stated that "the decision of the Corporation is an unsatisfactory equivocation" and that it did not change the position of the University made by Jerome D. Greene, Secretary of the Corporation, when he ruled last week that Browder could not speak.

The Society declared that the Corporation's decision to refer the matter to a committee is "a flimsy device to avoid the well-deserved wrath of the students who have demanded that the University grant the John Reed Society a hall in which to present Earl Browder."

"Why must there be an investigation of rights and liberties guaranteed by three hundred years of liberal traditions? . . . We fear that any committee to 'explore' the basis of Harvard's policy will only discover new technicalities with which to curtail our liberties.

"The John Reed Society calls upon all students and Faculty members to protest this decision of the Corporation and stand by their rights at a meeting to be held Wednesday evening at 8 o'clock," the statement concluded.

In letters to the CRIMSON two opponents of the Communist Party supported the John Reed Society's request to get University sanction. Granville Hicks, former Communist leader who broke with the party over war policies this fall, defended Browder's right to speak despite his pending trial.

Richard Pitts '41, President of the Harvard Socialist League, an organization supporting Trotsky, also wrote in support of Browder's speaking at Harvard.