Most of the activities of the clubs are of a much more normal nature. Designed to sustain and increase the participation and interest of the members, such projects as club bulletins, discussion meetings, Wellesley mixers, beer parties, and political tables, have admirably served their purpose. Charles L. Edson '56, past president of the HYDC maintains that his club has "tried to get down to the members, to incorporate more students into the clubs activities."
The HYRC has been the most successful in this respect, with its newspaper and freshmen workshops. The Harvard Times-Republican has weekly presented a platform for expressing the Republican viewpoint of the news, and has allowed many club members to help formulate this viewpoint.
Lack of interest in political organizations was not always a problem at the University. The following account of a Harvard Republican Club excursion to Washington, D.C., to the inauguration celebration of Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 presents quite a contrast to the current status of political activity:
"We hired an entire house, perhaps two houses, on a side street, filled the rooms with beds, and occupied it for two days and nights. We went down and back by special train... There were from 200 to 300 in the parade. Our group worked in caps and gowns, behind a large Harvard banner. After the parade the group countermarched in a body to the White House, and there was tendered a reception by the President on the portico."
Nowadays, political clubs are more interested in constructive action. In 1952, for instance, the Harvard Liberal Union, working in conjunction with several members of the faculty in a nationwide Civil Liberties Appeal, helped raise over $14,000 in a futile effort to unseat two main "opponents of civil liberties," Republican Senators William Jenner of Indiana and Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.
While the club presidents themselves realize that the influence of a college organization upon the candidacy of a major candidate is very hard to measure, concentrated effort by a few dozen workers in a local election can easily prove the difference between victory and defeat. The Liberal Union has worked upon this theory, and aided the election in the fall of 1954 of Sumner Kaplan to the State Legislature, the first Democrat ever elected in Brookline.
Ringing Doorbells
Much of the most important work consists of doorbell ringing, to get people registered to vote, and then to get people them out to vote. The Students for Stevenson Club is now in the process of preparing detailed information about registration and absentee ballots to residents of the five states, Minnesota, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, in which its candidate is entered in the primaries.
The Kefauver for President Club is the only other club which has pre convention campaign plans, since the HYDC, HLU, and HYRC are prohibited, by the nature of their affiliation with national organizations, from supporting pre-convention candidates.
A New Conservative Club also exists, but its founder and former president, William Brady '57, says that the organization will not campaign for candidates.
Once the actual campaign starts in September, however, every club interested in practical politics will go into action. The only ones with a definite scheme in mind will be those supporting a Presidential candidate. The more permanent, more broadly based clubs, the HLU, the HYDC, and the HYRC, will have to decide which candidate to support actively.
By virtue of its independent position, the Liberal Union has the most freedom in its choice of candidates. Although it cannot oppose candidates supported by either the national or state ADA, the HLU is free to withhold support from whomever it wishes, and can designate the specific men it wishes to aid.
After the issue of supporting candidates is decided the clubs settle down to the less spectacular task involved in political campaigning. Perhaps the best organized club for political action in 1952 was the HYDC, whose president, Stan Tobin, had worked long and hard in the summer planning for the campaign. He had police type maps of every precinct of Cambridge, and developed a system of methodically covering as much of the area as possible. Despite its small membership, the HYDC attracted the greatest number of workers during the autumn months.
Since it is chiefly in the few months of actual campaigning that a political organization can do any real good, it sometimes seems that a club should be in existence only during those months. However, without maintaining a continuous undercurrent of interest in the political ideals it supports, can hardly hope for a spontaneous outburst of assistance during election years.
The political clubs, with such projects as the two mock conventions and pre-campaign preparation for next fall, will be the vehicle for renewed political interest to manifest itself again. The remainder of this term will see continuing ground work activity in anticipation of the big push next fall, when again the political arena will dominate the country and the University