Meanwhile, Phillips was not through with personal controversy. A few days later, he was quoted by the CRIMSON as charging Dean Monro with "partisanship" in supporting the Dunster reorganization plan. Another Phillips backer called Monro's attitude "highly unethical for a member of the Administration." Although Phillips later denied having made the statement, it did not help his already low stock.

The Council met and ended the disagreement over re-organization by authorizing a committee of outstanding Council members and House Committee chairmen to write a new constitution, to be approved by student referendum in the fall. The committee had only three instructions--to plan a Council with functions somewhat more limited than the existing organization; to limit the membership to 22, which would include one man elected at large from each House, one man selected by each House Committee, and four freshmen; and to find a way to use non-Council talent. The Dunster plan had triumphed.

The following November, the Council approved the new constition proposed by the Committee on Re-organization. The new plan still said the purpose of the organization was to represent student opinion and influence Administrative decisions. But other changes clearly reflected a desire to limit and decentralize the power of the new council.,

Titles Changed

Symbolically, the titles of President and vice-President were changed to chairman and vice-chairman to avoid connotations of governing power. In addition, the bulk of the work was divided between three standing committees--Executive, Elections, and Combined Charities. The committee system, according to one student, was "an attempt to avoid the evils of putting too much power in one person's hands." Membership in the organizations was set at 21 students, to be chosen by House elections and House Committees.

The only really controversial issue was the name for the new organization. Supporters of the old Council wanted to keep the traditional "Student Council," but those who had opposed the Student Council's power advocated "Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs" to avoid the "usual student government connotations of 'student council' or the memory of Howie Phillips." Finally, the decision on name was left up to the students.

In December, the constitution was presented in a referendum to the entire student body and was handily passed. Eighty-five percent of the students voting backed the new plan, and the Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs was born. It was, however, a prophetic indication of the interest in the new organization that less than one-third of the students voted.

The irony of the whole story is that the person who set off the controversy which culminated in the new constitution had meanwhile fallen from view. During the summer of 1961, Howie Phillips resigned as president of the Student Council because he was on academic probation. At the Young Republicans' National Federation in June, he ran third out of three candidates for the three candidates for the office of national chairman. Later at the annual meeting of the National Student Association, Phillips and other conservatives were unable so make a significant dent in NSA's stubborn liberalism.

One cannot help wondering whether, if Phillips' grades and prestige had fallen one year earlier, the HCUA would be just beginning, instead of just ending, and we would be one revolution behind in the eternal cycle of the rise and fall of student governments at Harvard