Council Adheres to Policy; Forbid Red Cross Drive

Enforcing its "no separate drives" pledge more strictly than ever before, the Student Council announced last night that no Red Cross canvass would be conducted in the College this fall. Council members urged however that all who wished to make personal contributions should use the various stations around the Square.

Five hundred dollars minimum will be given the Red Cross out of Council funds, "and a good deal more if we get a hundred per cent pledge collection," Treasurer John P. Bunker '42 reported. The $500 minimum is equivalent to about 15 cents per undergraduate. However, it is more than the Red Cross received from the combined Council donation and full-scale student drive last year.

Give at Harvard Trust

One of the most painless methods of helping out the charity is to drop a few coins in the box provided at the Harvard Trust Company when paying one's term bill, it was pointed out.--"A quarter or so doesn't seem like much when you've just been relieved of two or three hundred dollars."

John W. Sullivan '43, who represented the Council in the negotiations with the Red Cross, said that in addition to its usual activities of relief work in stricken areas and emergencies in the U. S. A. and abroad, the organization was taking on a new responsibility now, that of helping draftees with problems and emergencies which are not covered by the U. S. O.

Aiding Draftees

Such work includes, for example, the raising of a fund of a million dollars to furnish athletic equipment for gymnasiums in draft camps. According to Sullivan, it seems that Congress had appropriated the money for the gyms but failed to equip them.

Innumerable personal difficulties are solved; a typical case is that of a Cambridge youth who was called to a Kansas camp when his mother was dying. The Red Cross arranged for his immediate return when the situation was brought to its attention.

Whereas 23 per cent of the population of Cambridge contributed last year, at least 40 per cent will be needed in the current membership drive, Sullivan said, in order that the now obligations may be met. Actually, the drive takes on a "special emergency" character, he noted, but the Council had decided to take the bulk of the Harvard share upon its shoulders rather than allow door-to-door soliciting.