Five hundred students recorded their opposition to President Conant's views on the war when a petition with that number of names affixed was presented at Massachusetts Hall between classes yesterday morning.
The protest was given to A. Calvert Smth '14, Secretary to the President, since President Conant himself was absent in Washington. It read:
"We, the undersigned students of Harvard University, wish to emphasize President Conant's statement that he was speaking only as a private citizen in his declaration of war, and not as a representative of Harvard University. 'We, Harvard students, are opposed to participation in this war."
In a recent radio address sponsored by William Allen White's Committee to defend America by Aiding the Allies, President Conant recommended that the United States pledge itself "without reservation" to the defeat of the Nazis.
The delegates who delivered the petition were the same group who sponsored the between-the-halves stunt at the Yale Bowl, in which a caricature figure of the President conductng a military drill all by himself had his gun snatched away from him by "John Harvard 1941," and a chemical retort substituted in its stead.
Original signers of the petition pointed out last night that the statement was not intended to register opposition to "aid to Great Britain short of war," but only active military intervention abroad.
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