SDS Plans No-Vote Rally, March to Boston Common

Students for a Democratic Society will sponsor an election week series of teachins, speeches, and leafletting campaigns in the area, highlighted by a rally Tuesday on Boston Common, to urge citizens not to vote.

Russ Newfield, a member of the SDS regional staff, estimated that 5-10,000 students will march to the Tuesday rally, scheduled for 3 p.m. One group will leave from the Cambridge Common at 12:30 p.m. Other groups will be marching from Boston University and Roxbury.

The march is part of a nationwide program to point out what SDS considers the lack of choice in the election and the worthlessness of the vote, and to demand immediate U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, Newfield said.

Demonstrations will take place in 15 cities, including New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Richard Cluster '68, a staff member on the SDS newspaper, The Old MOLE, said SDS recognizes differences between Humphrey and Nixon, but insists it is pointless to vote for either.

"Both are committed to the system, and anything either might do would be insignificant," he said. "We want to change the current foreign policy to one of genuine help for underdeveloped nations. Even McCarthy, working within the present capitalist system, could not have succeeded."

Cluster said the march would show that "a great number of people have not been fooled into thinking that our national problems can be solved within the confines of the present system." He added that like all SDS demonstrations, its second purpose was to build a movement of people who want change.

Teach-In at Tufts

Northeastern University sponsored a no-vote teach-in last night, and one is in session at Tufts today. Students at Boston University are being encouraged to protest the election choice by not attending classes on election day.

According to Newfield, there will be no such action at Harvard, but The Movement Center across from Adams House on Arrow Street will show movies and hold discussion groups.