Advertisement

Three Ex-Leaders of HYRC Expelled from Club Ranks

Charged With Vote Buying

Three former leaders of the Young Republican Club were expelled from the organization by a 42 to 36 vote of the club last night on a charge of buying votes.

The trio, John M. Gregg '52, Sanford J. Langa '51, and Arthur W. Bingham, III '51 charged after the meeting that there has not been an honest election of officers held by the H.Y.R.C. since the group organized in 1947. All three have held executive posts in the H.Y.R.C. at one time or another.

John L. Easton, Jr. 2L and Alan Calhamer '53 were elected vice-president and secretary of the club.

Langa claimed there were at least ten "ringers" voting for the administration at the meeting. "When I was working for the administration, I used to help bring ringers out for every election," he said.

Gordon L. Poole 2L, president of the club, denied that there were any "ringers" at the meeting. "We opened the meeting and fairly presented both sides," he said in reply to an allegation by Gregg and Langa that they had received no advance notice of the expulsion.

Advertisement

"The issue that developed at the meet of the wire recordings." These recording," Poole continued, "was the contentings, it was admitted, had been secretly made at a conversation between Gregg and William H. Gribble '51, the incumbent vice-president.

The recordings showed, according to Poole, that Gregg, Langa, and Bingham were trying to pay the dues of new members who were pledged to vote with the anti-club leadership faction that the three were leading.

Gregg claimed he was drunk at the time the recording was made and that words were put in his mouth. He said Gribble was "just a spy" and had always straddled both sides in elections, while his loyalty was really with the administration.

Roger Moore '51, speaking for the club leadership, discounted Gregg's charges, including a claim that membership lists had been toyed with to fix the election. He said he was merely a "genial Falstafflan politician with his eye fixed firmly but by no means unerringly on the main chance."

Poole issued a statement saying the recording was not used as blackmail but that Gregg and Langa volunteered to drop out of the election to stop the recording's circulation.

"Out of our large membership," Poole said, "it was inevitable that there would be some high school Machiavellis whose concept of politics was to stop at nothing."

Advertisement