Conflict Erupts Over Mem Drive; MDC's Hearing Slated for Friday

A public opinion bombshell is exploding in the middle of the state legislature and the Metropolitan District Commission over the proposed construction of three underpasses along Memorial Drive.

Amid the furor, Sen. Francis X. McCann (D-Cambridge), sponsor of the bill which authorized the construction, lashed out at the newly-formed Citizens' Emergency Committee to Save Memorial Drive: "Who created them to be the sole judge of what's good and bad for Cambridge?" He suggested that underlying the whole Memorial Drive controversy was an attempt to ruin him politically.

The first round of the fight will take place at 10 a.m. Friday at MDC headquarters, 20 Somerset St., when the plans for the construction will be unveiled. Several hundred citizens are expected to turn out to protest; the meeting may be moved if the hearing room proves too small. Demonstrators outside will brandish signs like "Why Throw Our $6 Million Down the Underpasses?"

McCann's bill mentioned only the construction of underpasses and overpasses on the drive. But Edward L. Bernays, organizer of the Citizens' Emergency Committee, said it was generally believed that the MDC will stagger construction of the underpasses to cushion public resentment and ultimately announce that the entire drive will be widened and made into an expressway, necessitating the destruction of the sycamore trees which line it.

Mrs. Cornelia Wheeler, member of the Cambridge Civic Association, said she was primarily concerned about the "implied threat to all of Cambridge's use of the river." Bernays commented that an expressway would be a virtual wall between Harvard and the Charles.

"That," said McCann, "is an old chestnut. They're raised all kinds of hell but none of them has even seen the plans yet."

McCann questioned why no hue and cry was raised when the legislature authorized the construction 20 months ago. The issue lay dormant until last fall. At a meeting of Organization Ten, a Cambridge civic group, Benjamin Fink, chief engineer of the MDC, assured the 400 members present that there was nothing to worry about. After Fink spoke, Bernays--a new resident of the city and the country's leading public relations man--denounced the MDC representative as "a stooge" and urged an aggressive attack to combat the building of the underpasses. At this meeting were laid the seeds of the Citizens' Emergency Committee.

Since the group was formed, editorial columns and radio and TV stations have been overflowing with comment--mostly hostile--on the proposed underpasses.

A week from Friday the House of Representatives' Municipal Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on a bill to repeal the underpass measure. Its sponsor, Mary B. Newman (D-Cambridge) is not optimistic about the chances for outright repeal. But she said last night that the advocates of the construction might now be satisfied with overpasses at River St. and Western Ave., since no one realized at the time of its passage that the Memorial Drive bill would become such a cause celebre.

McCann concurred that the chances for repeal were negligible, since it would be easy to strangle Mrs. Newman's bill with State House red tape. "We've got them up the stream with no paddle," he said.

Nonetheless, the Citizens' Emergency Committee is expected to intensify its activities considerably for the legislature's hearing. "We've only given them our howitzers thus far," Bernays said. "The bombs are coming next week."

Another leading Cambridge citizen entered the fray with a quick repartee Friday night. "The sycamores on Memorial Drive," Al Capp commented, would look a lot better with a politician hanging from each one.