Soc Rel Ballots To Be Destroyed

Letters of apology were sent yesterday by Professor Gordon W. Allport, chairman of the Social Relations Department, to several hundred recipients of a poll taken by an undergraduate. The polls were later ordered to be burned.

The undergraduate had sent out the poll, which contained many questions dealing with Communism, last Monday. Unknown to his tutor, he had placed numbers under the stamps of the return envelopes.

Although the names of those polled were anonymous to the student, the Social Relations Department recognized that this method could lead to abuse of their right to secrecy if the poll got into the wrong hands.

Allport commented on the situation after ordering the destruction of the polls, sending letters to all recipients explaining the "regrettable error," and assuring them that it would not happen again.

Social Sciences Have Responsibility

He said that Social Science polls have a responsibility to people in a democracy which must never be abused. Allport added, however, that sometimes anonymity must be qualified. This is particularly necessary where the same person must be polled at separate intervals, and his two sets of answers correlated.

One solution to this difficult problem, he said, is the code number system, but people always forget their numbers from the first to the second poll.