7,500 to Cast Mock Ballots In Crime Poll

More than 7,500 University students are expected to cast their ballots tomorrow in the CRIMSON's quadriennial presidential straw vote--a poll that in the past has served as an accurate barometer of sentiment at Harvard, if nowhere else. A post-card poll of the Faculty will be launched next week.

Four years ago a similar University poll gave Adlai Stevenson a narrow victory by 1,942 to 1,815 for General Eisenhower, although Ike dominated the Faculty balloting, 379 to 298. The Stevenson victory, contested at the time, by a spokesman for the HYRC was only the second recorded Democratic victory in Harvard history.

1912 Poll Supports Wilson

The earlier Democratic win, coming in 1912 with singular accuracy in the light of national totals, gave Woodrow Wilson a plurality of 735 votes over Theodore Roosevelt '80 with 475 and William Howard Taft with 365. This seeming prejudice against Democrats characterized the University returns until 1952.

University returns of past years have been characterized by a Republican regularity that occasionally transcends national trends and CRIMSON editorial support for other candidates. In 1948, when the CRIMSON was one of President Truman's few vocal journalistic supporters, the College voted heavily for Dewey by 1013 to Truman's 508, Thomas' 151, and Wallace's 133. No poll was conducted by the CRIMSON in 1944, when the paper was a service organ.

CRIME Opposed FDR

But in 1940, when this newspaper was saying that FDR was "surrounded by war-minded Anglophile advisers" who were pushing the country into an unwanted and unnecessary war in which we would "pay in the currency of blood," the University heeded its spokesman and voted for Willkie 2345 to 1705 for Roosevelt. And ----except for President Wilson's brief interlude of relative Democratic popularity at the University, Harvard has been traditionally as deeply Republican as its newspaper.