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Tacked up on a wall in front of a desk in the 52 Dunster Street headquarters of the Harvard-Radcliffe Students for McGovern office is "Jamie G." telephone number. "Jamie G." is James K. Galbraith '74, the coordinator of the Harvard McGovern volunteers last year. But this year Galbraith is on a leave of absence working for McGovern in Toledo, Ohio. The presence of his long distance telephone number reflected the extent to which he has continued to dominate the Harvard McGovern campaign.
The McGovern leadership at Harvard is not yet well organized. James Dumont '75, the new student coordinator, admitted that "I came into the job by default, it's all Jamie's doing." He also reported a noticeable lack of enthusiasm among some people who had been selected to complete the campaign leadership for the fall. He said that a couple of key people were kind of disappointed" by McGovern's summer performance.
Dumont now faces a number of additional organizational problems that range in seriousness from the failure of the New York Times to be regularly delivered to his office to an inability to get in touch with the majority of his volunteers. The McGovern office no longer has the current addresses of the volunteers it recruited last year. for most students have moved into different rooms with the new academic year. Dumont and a few volunteers have spent the last week tracking down the new addresses of last year's workers through the various house offices and the University telephone exchange.
The chore is close to completion but it has cost the campaign time. As a result it has been impossible to muster enough supporters to form a Harvard contingent for a march to tomorrow's McGovern rally at Post Office Square
However some volunteers did canvass in the North End last weekend Dumont projected that between 30 and 60 workers would show up but less than 20 came each day. Despite the weekend's poor turnout. Dumont was pleased by the freshman response to a table set up at registration two weeks ago. He had his staff collect more than 350 names at that time and on September 26, at a followup meeting in the Freshman Union, over 125 people attended. He also said that tables in the houses for upper class registration attracted about 100 new people.
Canvassing and telephone work will be the major duties of the volunteers for the duration of the campaign. They will be used in both Massachusetts and neighboring New England states.
The organization is not working with the faculty on the campaign. "With Marc Roberts and all the senior members of the faculty to write his position papers they don't need us," Dumont said Friday.
Nor is the student unit responsible for fund raising beyond trying to sell enough buttons to cover expenses. Dean Epps has told Dumont that it would be a violation of University rules to collect funds for the state campaign.
Like most McGovern workers. Dumont does not have too much attention for recent public opinion polls. He doubts their accuracy questions their relevance, and finally claims that he works because "Even if our chance were miniscule it would be worth working."
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