President Pusey has wholeheartedly endorsed a "Joe Must Go" campaign aimed at deposing Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, it was reported yesterday by the campaign's representative at the University.
"Of course I am all for the campaign," Pusey was quoted as saying by Stephen S. Willoughby '54, 1G Ed., a Madison, Wisconsin resident who is collecting signatures for a petition recalling McCarthy.
The President said he could not sign the petition, however, because he is no longer a legal resident of Wisconsin. But, according to Willoughby, he wished the campaign luck, and said the petition might be an effective moral weapon against McCarthy even without succeeding in having the Senator recalled.
As president of Lawrence College in Appleton, Wis., Pusey in 1952 endorsed "the McCarthy Record," a factual condemnation of the Senator and his tactics.
The "Joe Must Go" campaign, started on March 18 by Republican Leroy Gore, editor of a Wisconsin weekly, is based on an untried clause in the state constitution which provides for the recall of any elected official. According to the law, petitions against McCarthy signed by one fourth of the number of citizens who voted in 1952, could bring about a now Senatorial election in the state.
Legality of the recall provision is in doubt, however, because the Federal Constitution has no provision for the seating of Senators elected in a recall vote.
In addition, the signatures, of which over 400,000 would be required in this case, must all be collected within two months. Since the "Joe Must Go" campaign started on March 18, its workers are therefore racing against a May 18 deadline.
At last report nearly 200,000 signatures, or almost one half of those needed, had been collected, Willoughby said.
Willoughby started his attempt to get signatures from Wisconsin residents here last Saturday, when he placed a "Joe Must Go" classified advertisement in the CRIMSON. Response so far has been disappointing, he reports, mainly because most of the students here are not yet 21 and therefore cannot sign the petition.
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