'Not Impartiality'

Weld hesitates to say so in ringing words, but it is his belief that the entire proceedings, even irrespective of the price estimates, have not been conducted with the "impartiality we on the Council expected as a matter of course from this committee." A September 18 letter in advance of the recent meeting went to the Committee membership: Axt, Henry H. Chatfield '39, Kennedy, Lowell, Frederick F. Moseley, Jr. '36, George A. Perey '18, Nathan Pereles '04, George Rublee, '90, Philip C. Staples, Jr. '37, Thorndike, and Robert S. Wolcott '36. The author was chairman Saltonstall. Clear statements opposed the alleged crucial University needs that are pressed upon us." Specifically he plugged his personal view that "a fitting memorial to the World War II veterans could be added to the Chapel in a proper way that would be similar in form and in dignity to the memorial now there."

The Council's frank partiality was justified to its satisfaction in the reasoning and documentation of its report. This stated that out of a poll of 2500 students had come 50.4 percent favoritism for a Student Activities Center and all but 1.8 percent sentiment in favor of the general principle of a "utilitarian" memorial, in opposition to something such as the embellishment to Memorial Church now leading the field.

In the face of the Council's thesis the committee's towering hostility from the start deserves defense. Associated Harvard Clubs President Lowell thinks the Student Activities Center an unwise choice because it will in his view serve the College to the virtual exclusion of University-wide significance.

He adds that the Union was intended to fulfill the very functions now slated for the new Center and that "it didn't work." Then in an inkling of much that is left unsaid he notes the greater dignity of "spontaneous" fund-raising from a broad-based donor group capable of small contributions rather than what one alumnus calls the usual "browbeating of wealthy men" alone. The Student Activities Center is in Lowell's estimation so large an undertaking from the standpoint of soliciting money that it has assumed all the marks of complete impracticability.

The General Will

Now that the cards are on the table, the financial estimate has hit $2,500,000, with a $1,500,000 figure from Shepley Wednesday and an endowment approximation by Lowell the same day of an even million. This is admittedly not a maximum estimate and would have to undergo revision were labor and material costs to suddenly rise. But Axt feels it is a figure which would probably have created a psychological climate more favorable to his cause had it appeared two months ago.

At the present time Axt seems convinced that the only hope for a memorial other than the plaque-scholarship duo rests with the arousing of sufficient informed support within the body of younger Alumni, especially veterans of the recent war, to sell the committee a new version of the General Will.

Weld strenuously objects to the conspicuous failure of the committee so far to provide for any extensive airing of the three choices still eligible for consideration. Not only does the listing of these in the official report devote disproportionate space to the plaque, but the "Alumni Bulletin" about to reach its readers treats each item with the greatest brevity, referring in one line to "a Student Activities Center in Cambridge."

The question of leadership for an opposition force accentuates the still-unrecorded stand of Representative Kennedy. As the young liberal spokesman in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Kennedy has attempted to alter over-cautions policies in that oligarchical organization. Slated for February are the Memorial Committee's meeting and executive gatherings of the Harvard Clubs and the Alumni both able to confirm a decision.