Undergraduate opinion registered over-whelming approval for a "utilitarian" war memorial in a special Student Council poll yesterday, turning thumbs down on a monument or statue to commemorate Harvard's World War II dead.

The proposed student activities center garnered 53 percent of the nearly 2500 ballots cast, while a hockey rink and a scholarship fund received 18 and 16 percent respectively.

Thaxter Swan '45, chairman of the Council's extracurricular activities committee, explained that many voters were confused both by the placing of the hockey rink and auditorium together on the ballot, and ignorance of the fact that the proposed activities center would include a theater. Write-in votes for a theater, as well as ballots marked for auditorium on which the hockey rink was crossed out, were added to the activities center total, Swan said.

No Veteran Bloc

"In spite of the confusion," Swan added, "student approval of the activities center, is clear." An analysis of the votes showed no difference between veteran and non-veteran opinion.

Also on the ballot were a music center, an enlarged infirmary and the monument, but 92 independents took advantage of their write-in privileges and came up with such original suggestions as a veterans bonus and an endowed liquor establishment.

Results of the poll will go to the Saltonstall War Memorial Committee, accompanied by the Council's own endorsement of the activities center, and may come up before the Associated Harvard Clubs in Milwaukee next month.