Harvard Rally Fizzles; Raid on 'Cliffe Flops; Chaos Reigns in Ivy

"Tis May, 'tis May, the lusty month of May, and to announce that fact more than 100 young Harvard types strolled up to Radcliffe last night for a panty raid. Later, two waves of upperclassmen, evicted from a folk song fest on the banks of the Charles, moved up Plympton St. in two waves shouting "free the freshmen" and "Birmingham and Bermudas."

Elsewhere, in sympathetic action around the Ivy League, other students met with greater success. More than 1000 Yalies poured into the streets, tossing firecrackers and flaming rolls or toilet paper near the graduate women's dorms. At Providence, hundreds of Brownies fought police, who used police dogs, motor cycles and night sticks to force the unruly crown back to the campus.

In Florissant, Mo., about 500 students from Roman Catholic parochial schools marched through the streets militating against the legislature's killing of a bill to permit parochial students to use state school buses.

But while the nation's campuses seethed with spring fever, Harvard was relatively quiet. The would-be panty seekers found themselves locked out, finally resorted to chasing a lone 'Cliffie to Eliot Hall where they gained entrance. But the group had little idea of how to obtain panties and left shortly after, offering their bursar's cards in an ignominious gesture of surrender to waiting police.

The upperclassmen found the freshmen in the Yard quite unwilling to accept greater freedom. While Yardlings watched cautiously from windows, a quickly formed, efficient police not ushered the group of about 150 out the Lamont gate.

Marching docilely to Mass. Ave., the boys tried hard to think up an issue and to gain supporters. Finding neither, the fun-loving band received showers from the windows of Lowell and Mather, and were well controlled by local gendarmes who collected a few bursar's cards. Master Perkins reportedly marched out to Freedom Square and vigorously discouraged the unorganized rioters.

The whole effort was abandoned an hour later, an abysmal failure.