Gallo Leaflets Put In Students' Mail, Violating Rules

Forty one hundred brochures attacking the Gallo boycott were distributed to students' mailboxes in most of the undergraduate Houses Tuesday night, in violation of a University rule that prohibits soliciting through the mailboxes by non-University organization.s

Gallo officials in Modesto, Cal., originally intended the brochures as an advertising supplement to either Tuesday's or yesterday's Harvard Crimson.

After The Crimson refused Monday to run the brochure on the grounds that it was not properly identified as a paid political advertisement, the regional Gallo representative arranged to pick up the brochures at The Crimson building, hours before their distribution.

A Gallo official reached last night in Modesto, Cal., denied that Gallo headquarters there was responsible for the distribution.

Joshua Simons, Gallo's director of educational research, said that since Gallo informs all its local distributors of its advertising plans in advance, any of them could have noticed the advertisement's failure to appear, removed the brochures and arranged their distribution.

Jack Pappas--head of C. Pappas Co., the local distributor of Gallo wines--said yesterday that he knew nothing about the distribution.

And the man who picked up the brochures at the Crimson Monday identified himself as a representative of Gallo Wineries.

The Crimson refused to insert the brochure--which Gallo shipped to Cambridge at a cost of $85--because it failed to make clear that it was a political advertisement payed for by Gallo, Crimson president Richard J. Meislin '75 said yesterday.

Meislin said he rejected a Gallo proposal to pay for rubber stamps and labor to make the necessary additions to the brochure because "it is the responsibility of the advertiser to provide the advertisement in correct form," Meislin explained.

Simons accused The Crimson of "playing politics." He said "the fact that both sides of the boycott issue were not being presented" probably caused the illegal distribution. "Obviously someone believed it would be better for the students to see an opinion which opposed The Crimson's," he said.

Meislin said Simon's statement was "not true," nothing that The Crimson has printed pro-Gallo advertisements that were "properly identified."

The brochure, which bears the title, "If you're involved enough to think about the Gallo boycott...you should be involved enough to listen to their side," cites statistics indicating that the farm workers' plight is not as bad as anti-Gallo forces claim.

The brochure urges readers to write their senators in support of Senate Bill S3409. The bill, introduced by Sen. John Tunney of California, would allow farm workers what the brochure calls "the right to a totally impartial, secret ballot to select the union of their choice.