Ellis to Meet Opponents Of HCUA Schism

The fate of student government at Harvard College may well be determined in a modest office on the second floor of Phillips Brooks House this afternoon.

There, H. Reed Ellis '65, chairman of the HCUA, will meet with the two factions which opposed the HCUA division defeated in last Thursday's referendum and will attempt to hammer out a compromise constitution.

The more influential, but probably more easily appeased of the dissident groups will be the freshmen, who want greater representation in any undergraduate government scheme. It was essentially the overwhelming 431-90 freshman vote against the referendum that killed it.

The more ideologically challenging of the factions wants a stronger student government at Harvard and seeks a college-wide constitutional convention on the subject. Their position is somewhat weakened, however, by the fact that upperclassmen voted 906-692 in favor of the referendum and that the freshmen seemed to have no quarrel with the division idea per se.

The real complication in the present situation is that the present HCUA slate leaves office at the end of February. If a new constitution is not written, passed through the Constitutional Revision Committee, approved by the Council, and put to a referendum by the beginning of the month, another council will have to be elected in the midst of the present organizational struggle.

Unquestionably, the main issue of such an election would be the constitutional one. Thus the possibility arises of a Council being elected to abolish itself, or of a lame duck council dissolving the posts its successors were to fill.

Also, considering the general student apathy towards the Council, it is possible that an anarchist slate of candidates advocating the end of student government altogether might receive considerable support in such an election, especially from upperclassmen.