Student Declares Secretly Marked Polls "Dishonest'

A student who replied to a secretly code-marked questionnaire said last night that he "strongly disapproved of such dishonest procedures and indicated that he would report any attempts by the firm to follow up the firm postal authorities as mail fraud.

The polls by a New York, research organization, Erdos and Morgan. They asked such questions as what clothes the student work and what income his father made. On the lower right hand corner of the one-page poll was an almost indistinguishable water-marked code number. In a personal letter accompanying the polls, the firm said that the student did not have to sign his name.

The student who attacked the polls, Edmund Jacobsen, Jr. '54, said that he considered numbering such suuposedly anonymous questionnaires a "breach of ethics." He said: "It will make me think over twice before I sign another poll. I think if they came to interview me. I would complain to the postal authorities." However, he said before he would do this, he would first attempt to find out exactly what the poll is being used for.

Report Next Fall

Erdos and Morgan would not reveal the poll's purpose to the CRIMSON. Arthur G. Morgan, a partner in the firm, said that a report would be made on the polls, entitled "National College Survey," sometime next fall.

Jacobsen said that the poll was apparently so trivial that he saw no harm in replying at the time. "Now I see that answering was obviously a mistake," he stated.

The firm said that it sent 200 questionnaires to the University. Between 50 and 100 have returned them, Morgan said. A total of 55 colleges were polled.