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N. E. MODEL LEAGUE OPENS ASSEMBLIES

Conference Clogged by Imitation of Geneva Red Tape--Hoffman Scores Hit as American Observer

"I salute you, men and women, born in a war period, bravely facing failure to replace anarchy with government, taking up the torch of civilization!" spat out white-haired, dinner-jacketed Manley O. Hudson '01, Bemis Professor of International Law, closing the initial meeting of the New England Model League Assembly in the New Lecture Hall last evening. Saved to the end of a red-tape program which had obviously bored him, to prevent the audience from melting away, Professor Hudson had benignantly fulfilled the League's hopes telling the assemblage that the institution which they imitate is a going concern, certain to be preserved through its worst crises by megalomaniac and frightened small nations.

Sated by a tiresome evening of business to which they had paid little attention, the delegates applauded Professor Hudson, chatted volubly, slowly left the hall to the mercies of volunteer Radcliffe damsels who removed the fifty-four timid, gay little flags which had marked the national contingents. Delegates had given respectful attention to Dr. Harold Tobin, Dartmouth League Critic, slight, dark, nervous, and bespectacled, who clung desperately to the back of his chair, swayed from side to side, and assured the league that its critics, charging it with futility, were wrong, to be ignored. Dr. Tobin further delivered an outspoken if almost inaudible attack on Secretary Wallace, saying that the secretary desires an impossibility when he asks for economic relations without political entanglements.

Less interest, less attention was granted the intervening business. Most members agreed that the election of pretty, plump Miss Emily Lewis, Smith '34, as President was "fixed," agreed on unanimous vote after the ballots had shown a 34-20 majority. No Boer, Miss Lewis thanked the League in the name of her South Africa, took the chair while the delegation orators occupied the rostrum. The gathered company was nonplussed when the first speaker, Yale's and France's Pierre Bori, delivered a stylistically brilliant address in his native tongue, propounding classic bromides about civilization, liberte, securite, and Gallic defense "contre les hordes sauvages." Another native language speaker on the program was the gentleman from Greece, whose lucubration occupied a quarter of an hour, and absorbed as much more time for translation. Star of the undergraduates was Malcolm Hoffman '34, no mean successor to Edwin L. Popper '31, who once kept the assembly's meetings bright: Hoffman made the eagle scream politely, was thanked with much clapping.

Other speakers, taking windy advantage of their prerogative to state national objectives unchecked, met with less consideration. As in the "real" League, ushers were supplied to carry messages from national group to national group. Comely Radcliffe maidens, cleverly clad in white, which contrasted flatteringly with the dull winter garb of their visiting sisters, flitted constantly from contingent to contingent, often transporting billet dour or notes reading "Just to make use of the usher." So the League dispelled ennui.

Today's calendar sees the gathering get down to its real and serious business. Just as at Geneva all important transactions are committee meetings, which will in this instance occupy five Harvard and Radcliffe classrooms all morning and all afternoon. Reorganization of the League, Economic and Constitutional Reconstruction of Eastern Europe, Administration of Mandates. Social questions such as opium, will be thrashed out by five o'clock this afternoon in the various sessions. Though no Junior Leaguers the lasses of the congress are socially-minded enough to anticipate eagerly the dinner and ball at the Continental Hotel which will reward two days of hard work, allow the billets passed last night to fructify

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