A New Diversion

Opportunity eyeballs the young radical (or reactionary) in the face. With the political campaign about to swing into its last phase, undergraduate enthusiasm can at last find an adequate form of expression. Those who as freshmen once pined for excitement might well join the Students for Stevenson, the Harvard Young Democrats, the Harvard Liberal Union (and the Harvard Young Republicans) in attempts to sway the key Massachusetts vote one way (or the other).

The importance of Massachusetts in the national campaign can hardly be exaggerated. Like Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, it is one of the large wavering states that could prove decisive in the election. In previous years, Massachusetts has proved herself nearly balanced between the two parties, with the Democrats strong in Boston and the Republicans dominant in the western part of the state.

Boston figures especially in the campaign, for several key Democratic precincts are wavering. For instance, in Roxbury's Jewish and Negro Ward 12, a white Democrat faces a Negro Republican. The Republicans, of course, hope to sway the Negro vote, while the Democrats are concentrating on holding the line by playing up the rent control issue. These precincts are vital for either side to win. Stevenson supporters figure that he must carry Boston by at least 125,000 votes if he is to secure the state's 16 electoral votes. In 1952, Stevenson had a margin of only 67,000 votes in Boston and, as a result, Eisenhower with his provincial support carried the state by a slim margin. An additional 3 votes per precinct might well have done the trick in Massachusetts.

The student at this point quails and asks what he is to do about all this. He has heard that students are not well received in East Cambridge. He is right. But students are listened to in other parts of Cambridge, in Brookline, Newton, Brighton, and in that crucial ward in Roxbury.

If the young idealist, radical, or what-have-you really seeks to have his leanings expressed in government, he has no better opportunity than in this election. As a door-to-door campaigner, as a driver of voters and motorcades, as a poll-judge and leaflet distributor, the student can at last make idea meet action. It is also, by the way, a chance for the effect and scholarly to encounter the inert and proletarian. If the campaign efforts of a doorbell-ringer or a pamphlet-strewer seem meager, at least there is always the "value of the experience."

The reader and his listeners are possibly sneering across the table at each other. Ah, well, there you have it. Harvard gownies, unfortunately, consider their as yet incipient talents so fine that they cannot possibly demean themselves or waste their time in ordinary political activity. The curse of the daily round of dinner-table conversations, naps, and trips to Cronin's hangs pall-like as ever over the community. We give notice, however, that in the opportunity to campaign for one party (or the other) the languid student has an extraordinary opportunity to serve his own political principles and, at the same time, to have a ball. Those interested in asserting themselves for the right (or the wrong) or just for the heck of it should contact Gordon Martin for the Democrats (or Don Hodel for the others).