Councillors Vote Praise of Pusey For Police Raid

After nearly two hours of emotional debate, the Cambridge City Council last night passed a resolution praising President Pusey and the Cambridge Police Department for their "courageous stand" in dealing with the University Hall demonstrators. Six Councillors voted for the resolution introduced by Mayor Walter J. Sullivan, while two voted present and one voted no.

Councillor Barbara W. Ackermann, who voted against the resolution, had earlier asked for a complete review of the police action in view of "serious allegations of police brutality appearing in the national press." Mrs. Ackermann's motion was left on the table after Sullivan's was passed.

Investigate Brutality

Speaking against the Sullivan resolution, Mrs. Ackermann said "I don't think that President Pusey was right. I ask you to do our police department the service of looking into the charges of brutality." Councillor Edward A. Crane '35, who voted for the resolution, answered Mrs. Ackermann by saying that the "isolated cases of brutality are incidental. The fundamental question is whether you take a stand against self-proclaimed revolutionaries." Crane also said that he personally witnessed the pilferage of desks in the basement of University Hall. "I saw one young person take out of a desk a roll of stamps, put it in his pocket and walk off," he said.

'Can't Congratulate Pusey'

Councillors Alfred E. Vellucci and Cornelia B. Wheeler voted present on the resolution. "I cannot vote for any resolution congratulating President Pusey," Vellucci said. "I don't think the police want to be congratulated. They don't like to see these things happen. The police got sick when they were ordered to go there because they knew what would happen."

'When Harvard Will Get Us'

"In the end it comes down to a question of when Harvard will get us," Vellucci continued. "For the last 25 years there has been a race between Harvard and M.I.T. to see who would get to Central Square first. Harvard has been going around this city with a bag of gold gobbling up land as fast as it could. Even M.I.T. in recent years has come to realize some responsibility to the City. But Harvard has just sat on its carcass and done nothing."

Vellucci recalled that in 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 had endorsed the sit-in of mine workers led by John L. Lewis. He said that such a sit-in, despite its illegality, drew national attention to a critically wrong situation. "The fact is that now the whole world is watching Harvard. Dr. Pusey should have worked these things out a long time ago. How can Harvard men advise the rest of the world how to live when they can't even straighten our a little mess in their own back yard without calling on Cambridge police for help?" Vellucci said.

Sullivan said that during the "fracas" in the Yard the many students who lived there and were watching "behaved like real gentlemen." He went on record as congratulating those students as well as President Pusey and the police