The Coop Slate

THE CAMPAIGN to elect an insurgent student slate to the Board of Directors of the Harvard Co-operative Society will end tonight at the Coop's annual meeting at the Cambridge High and Latin School. These students, in mounting the first serious challenge to the Coop's election practices in the society's 86-year history, are seeking to give the Coop a more constructive role in the Boston and Cambridge communities. They deserve to be supported.

The campaign began with a bang and hurriedly converted itself into a whimper. When the plan was announced earlier this month by Wesley E.Profit '69, the election of the new slate seemed to promise a radical transformation of the Coop from a moribund and insensitive burden on the Cambridge community into a major force for social equality and change.

But during the ensuing debate over the Coop and its policies, it has become clear that the Coop is neither as evil nor as able to do good as Profit and the members of the insurgent slate had initially believed. Contrary to earlier insinuations, the Coop does not pay uniquely low wages, nor do its hiring practices discriminate against blacks and other minority groups. Because it pays back its profits in the form of patronage refunds, the Coop could probably find very little money to invest in community-oriented projects, and its tax position severely limits the use of whatever money might be available. As Profit admitted last week, "I don't know how much of our program is feasible. If elected, we just promise to take a serious look at what can be done."

That promise is sufficient reason to elect the Profit slate. Although there are no glaring injustices which the student slate will be able to correct at once, student directors will nonetheless assure that student opinion will be heard in the managing of the Coop. It will also assure that such opportunities for a socially useful role for the Coop as may arise in the future will be fully and imaginatively explored. And it is reasonable to expect that, with a group of able and concerned students on the board of the Coop actively looking for such opportunities, they will become more frequent. The only way to assure that the Coop is run justly and with a bold sense of community is to elect directors who hold these values.

A turnout of about 1500 Coop members is needed at Cambridge High and Latin tonight if the student slate is to be considered by the membership. Go to the meeting and vote.