HLU Votes Down Making Members Join Up with SDA

After two and one-half hours of debate last night, the members of the Harvard Liberal Union failed to reach a two-third majority which would have meant affiliation with the new national group, Students for Democratic Action, but passed a majority resolution backing SDA and affirming a desire to join in the near future.

The constitution of the SDA declares against "Communists and all other totalitarian groups," and the debate on the amendment revolved around the question of whether every HLU member could support this stand. The proposed amendment would have required every man in HLU to get an SDA membership card and thereby personally back their principle of non-affiliation with Communists.

77 to 60 Vote Falls

A vote of 77 for and 60 against did not attain the requisite two-thirds majority which was needed to pass the constitutional amendment for affiliation. The resolution of Frederick D. Houghteling '50 putting the HLU on record behind the principles of SDA passed by 74 to 44 tally.

The proposal which did pass put the HLU as an organization behind the SDA principles but, in effect, allowed individual members to dissent and still remain in the HLU although disagreeing with the views of the majority.

Alan Barton '45 speaking for the amendment stressed that if all men joined SDA the HLU would gain "a prominent place in the student movement of the United States," and that Communists in a liberal organization "perverted it to their own ends."

Opposition speakers said that forced individual subscription to this policy would have expelled many members of the HLU besides those with Communist leanings and thus diminish its effectiveness.

The resolution stated "that it is the fixed policy of the HLU to maintain itself as a non-Communist liberal student group devoted to political action and education both within and without the Harvard Community." It accepts "and will be guided by the principles of SDA . . . .

"We reaffirm our desire . . . to affiliate with SDA and hope that it will be possible for us to become an SDA chapter. In the mean while we will work closely with SDA on all projects . . . and urge all HLU members to become members of SDA.