Recess Ambassadors

It's bound to happen sometime during the Christmas recess. Some parent, uncle, neighbor of friend in a worried voice, is going to ask just about every undergraduate: "Say, what's up with those Reds at your College?" His exact wording will vary with the care with which he reads the papers, but the attitude will be the same: honest concern over what the papers call the "mess" at Harvard, and the same kind of concern he felt last fall about the "mess" in Washington.

By this time every student here should have an idea, from his day to day association with the University, about the accuracy of this public image of Harvard, and about the essential soundness of the Corporation decisions which have provoked present attacks. Any student who thinks the Corporation wrong, who thinks professors who use the Fifth Amendment should be fired forthwith, should let the Corporation know it, for as a Harvard student he is being hurt as much by this public image as any University official. But for this very reason, any undergraduate who thinks the more vocal foes of the University are creating false impressions with outright lies has just as much of a responsibility to set the record straight to anyone who expresses doubt.

If they ask him about the Communist professors, he should remind them that no one can name a professor who is Communist. If they reply, "Well, so-and-so is pretty close to one," he can rightfully respond that being a Communist in this country today is so reprehensible that to call someone a Communist who isn't is like calling a proper girl a prostitute.

If they say, repeating Senator McCarthy, that the University is the place "Fifth Amendment teachers" should apply to for employment, he should remind them that the Corporation considers use of said Amendment "misconduct," and has not nor will recruit teachers who use it.

And if, digging deeper, they bring up Alger Hiss or Harry Dexter White, he can counter with James B. Conant, Edwin Colu, Christian Herter, Leveret Saltonstall, Percy Bridgeman, Franklin Roosevelt, Sinclair Weeks and Thomas Lamont. The University is not deficient on this score.

And if the newspaper reader will listen, the undergraduate might explain to him that the atmosphere of freedom which spawned the former was vital to the accomplishments of the latter.

The undergraduate cannot change many minds at one time. He has no television, radio, or headlines to present his case. But every mind he can change, every doubt he can clear up will be a positive contribution. To go through the country dispensing truth in the wake of McCarthy is not a task with any certainty of success. But it must be done, and it might as well be done by those to whom it means the most. There is no room for the traditional Harvard indifference. For undergraduates, "It is better to light even one small candle than to sit and curse the darkness."