The Mail SHEA BILL SUPPORT

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The Shea Bill, coming up for discussion in the Massachusetts State Senate this week, would prohibit the drafting of Massachusetts kids in undeclared wars.

Today. I called my State Senator, Francis X. McCann, to urge that he vote for the Shea Bill. After some double-talk about the constitutionality of the measure (the bill is, of course, a direct challenge to the constitutionality of the Vietnam war), Senator McCann said he was going to vote against.

When I pointed out that there were probably three or four hundred graduate students in my ward alone, that most could be expected to feel as I do about the Shea Bill, and that we would remember this when we next got inside a voting booth, Senator McCann was singularly unperturbed. He bad been in this business sixteen years, he said, and the "so-called Harvard group" had never made much difference in his political career.

Senator McCann, I have the feeling, knows whereof he speaks. Something has gone wrong here.

There are enough graduate students registered in Cambridge to bring pressure to bear when something like the Shea Bill comes up. And to form a significant block when Cambridge votes for city, state, and national representatives. On the obvious issues, at least, we ought to be working as a group, (Right now, the lobby making the most noise about the Shea Bill is the American Legion; three guesses where they stand.)

If the "so-called Harvard group" is to affect the Senator McCanns of this world, it has to get itself together. For a starter, I am compiling a list of Harvard students registered to vote in Cambridge. If you are one such, send a postcard with your name, address and telephone number to Bill Dowling, 885 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge. If you know others who don't read the CRIMSON regularly, please ask them to do the same. The next step, of course, is to get people who haven't registered to register. And the next, a communications system (newsletter, telephone calls) to keep everyone in touch.

In the meantime, the Shea Bill is yet to be voted on, and you might let Senator McCann know that you exist His number at the State House is 727-2755; if you can't get him there, call the Senate Lobby, 727-2455, and they'll leave your name and number for him to call back. Come together, right now.