Yet in one sense the program was not a failure. Alpervitzing, as it was called, seemed an ideal activity for idealistic students. It was an imaginative way to expose the community to Tocsin's point of view. And it led perfectly into the most widespread educational campaign students had yet devised: a political campaign. During the spring of 1962, Professor H. Stuart Hughes had been persuaded to run for the United States Senate.

Organizing a precinct, writing speeches, talking to voters, doing research, Harvard students virtually ran the Hughes campaign. Some felt close to the voters--they practically lived out at the Columbia Point Housing Project. Going to meetings, on the campaign trail, knocking on doors, hundreds of students got to know some form of politics. In the fullest sense of the word, this was a liberal education.

The campaign was Alpervitzing writ large. Its genuine purpose was to stimulate and challenge the voters of Massachusetts. During the fall, Hughes tried continually to present and explain a new program. Some critics called him silly or quixotic. But Hughes, and hundreds of students with him, were determined to dispell the illusion--and fact--of American political homogeneity. Teddy Kennedy or Stuart Hughes: it made a difference.

For a while, Hughes workers were optimistic. They had stunned the state by getting twice the required 73,000 signatures needed to put Hughes on the ballot. Gradually Hughes gained acceptance as a legitimate candidate: Republican candidate George Lodge even agreed to debates him on television.

Winner Take All

But then came Cuba. In mid-October President Kennedy was challenged by reports of Russian missiles in Cubs. At first he denied the reports; then, dramatically, he acted.

It was a curious week. On Monday it was announced that the President would that night address the nation on television. Students were frightened but strangely excited. In inflammatory language Kennedy announced plans to blockade the island.

In the vacuum of moral leadership, Tocsin felt obliged to act. At the Tocsin membership meeting on Tuesday night, radical ideas were popped from all corners of the room. One member, however, injected a sobering note. "This discussion sounds like Tocsin versus the United States," he said. "And form some of the suggestions, you'd think our forces were about equal."

It is history that Cuba and Russia and Castro and Khrushchev backed down. Kennedy played it tough and got his way. He gambled and won. In terms of practical politics, student radicals wouldn't go down for the count, but they were given a T.K.O. When Hughes was clobbered in the election two weeks later, it was anticlimactic.

Momentarily, student activists wondered what to do next. There was talk of starting a magazine or an activist college or taking a series of full page advertisements in the New York Times. They wanted a vehicle to criticize, or suggest, United States policy in South Viet Nam, the Union of South Africa, Iran, Chile, and sundry other nations.

Enter CRCC

But Birmingham made the direction clear.

For several years, college students had been involved in Civil Rights activity. Students had led the sit-ins, joined the freedom rides, sought to register southern Negro voters. However, organized Civil Rights activity at Harvard had been slow in coming. Except for a flurry of organization during the Woolworth sit-ins in the spring of 1960, the University had created no formal organization.

In the winter of 1962-63, as civil rights work gained impetus around the country, a half dozen students formed the Harvard Civil Rights Co-ordating Committee (CRCC). The group helped civil rights leaders in Boston to organize selective patronage campaigns. But its work was marginal.

Then came Birmingham and the momentous response. Boston leaders made the connection obvious by organizing a Birmingham to Boston march.

At a huge rally in Boston Commons, Negro leaders urged citizens to work to overcome problems at home. Some 200 Harvard and Radcliffe students joined the march.

This fall, almost 1000 students have signed up to work for CRCC--that number included almost one third of the freshman class. The only problem was finding enough for them to do. A new phase of Harvard liberal political action in the 1960's has been born