YPH Accuses Charity Drive Of Fraud, Then Backs Down

The Young Progressives last night accused the Combined Charities Drive of "deliberate fraud and misrepresentation" and two hours later admitted they were wrong.

YPH said it was mistaken yesterday when it claimed that the Student Council had faked the names of one of its charities in "a deliberate design to misrepresent."

The Progressives had referred to the "National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students," one of the six organizations on the Combined Charity list. The fund helps Negroes got into non-segregated colleges.

According to the original YPH statement, the National Scholarship Service was a fake name invented by the Student Council and the money donated to it actually went to the United Negro College Fund, which helps private, segregated Negro colleges.

The United Negro College Fund was on the Combined Charity list last year, and had attracted some student protest because it favored the segregation of Negroes. "It is apparent," said yesterday's YPH statement, "that the Council purposely changed the name of the Jim Crow weed" this year to deceive students.

"Disgraceful Policy"

"This fund," the statement claimed, "was instituted to propagate the disgraceful policy of separate but equal education in the United States. It makes sure that Negroes have no excuse to try to enter white colleges."

Because of the alleged front organization, YPH said "we hereby charge the Student Council and its Combined Charity Drive with deliberate fraud and misrepresentation." Last night the Progressives confessed it was all a mistake.

Two Sources

"We had gotten our wrong information from two sources," YPH President Lowell P. Beveridge, Jr. '52 said last night. "One was a recent letter to the Council and the other was Ed Burke (Edward F. Burke '50, Council president). In both cases it was our fault."

The letter was from the United Negro College Fund, the charity used last year and which supports segregated schools. "We are deeply grateful and extremely proud that the students of Harvard University have given their support to the Fund," the letter began.

Didn't Read Carefully

"We didn't read the letter carefully," Beveridge said. "We thought it meant Harvard was supporting the Fund this year." Actually, the letter was just to thank the College for its contribution last fall, and to ask for support again this year."

Beveridge said a YPH man had asked Burke about the letter, and that Burke

Combined Charities solicitors gathered another $4000 last night, to bring the total to $14,452.14. Lowell House, which Monday collected $100 more than its first-day figure last year, still leads the pack. had confirmed that the money was again going to the United Negro College Fund this year.

Reached in Providence last night, Burke said he remembered someone asking about the fund, and that "I told him I thought it was the same fund as last year."

Two Funds

Beveridge admitted the YPH mistake after reading the letter again, phoning Burke, and talking to George J. Feeney '50, chairman of the Charities Drive. Feeney told him there actually were two Negro funds, and that the Drive had switched to the non-segregated one after last year's complaints.

The present National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students is a prominent national charity, he said, and is backed by the presidents of Wellesley, Radcliffe, and Princeton, and by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People