The political hay wagon is towards the North Harvard renewal site. And the from the tiny kite-shaped hardly a thousand feet on longest side, may prove well the pickings for certain .

Residents of the area, in their organized struggle against Boston Redevelopment plan to raze their houses a high-rise, high-rent complex, have attracted local and even some attention.

The project, which BRA Administer Edward J. Logue has said is one of my favorites," is to develop into a king-size for Logue and a vulnerable in the political armor of Mayor John F. Collins.

The publicity is giving the BRA the image among the voters as an agency of ogres, evicting the poor for the of the rich. One BRA tells the story of filling out a in which he listed his as "Boston Redevelopment The lady who processed began to berate him as a brute. "My God," he shook "She didn't even come from affected by urban renewal." last Monday's malee in the 12 people were arrested, one Harvard student, James '64, was evicted, along with wife and eight-month-old child. of the more partial observers the sit-in that took place front porch to the famous at the Edmund Pottus Bridge .

just as Selma became a of the civil rights struggle, brouhaha behind the School seems to be casting the plot in the role of symbol of national controversy over urban

Closer to home, it has already become a political issue in the preliminary sparring in the upcoming scramble for senatorial seat, vitally affecting the chances of one of the prime contenders -- Mayor John F. Collins.

When Collins took over City Hall in 1960, after an upset victory over old line politician John E. Powers, urban renewal in Boston was stagnant. There were several small projects in progress, but it was becoming apparent that these were not enough. Property values in Boston had dropped nearly a half billion dollars since 1930, and about 50 per cent of the city's residents were living in so-called "slum-dominated" neighborhoods. Mayor Collins imported Logue, who had earned a national reputation as the man who saved New Haven, Cons. After some political hassling, Logue was installed as head of the BRA, which is a semiautonomous body created under state law to contract with federal and other urban renewal agencies. Logue took the job on condition that the BRA be re-organized -- and it was, bringing all the facets of the broad development project under a single administrator -- Logue, who is responsible directly to the Mayor (and, at least in theory, to the BRA). Since that time, these two men have worked in tandem to develop and transform into reality The New Boston, and Collins has essentially placed his political career on the line with the success or failure of the redevelopment scheme.

Collins has already announced that be will seek the Democratic nomination for the Senate of Leverett '14 (R-Mass). But a few other hopefuls are the nomination, too. One of these is the former Governor Endicott Peabody, who, as he left Friday for a "facting-finding." European tour, all but said that he wants to give Salty a contest. He also took a potshot at Collins - criticizing the North Harvard renewal plan as "an abuse of the purpose of urban renewal," suggesting that the land should be rehabilitated and "go to the people and not to just one property-owner."

The head-on Peabody-Collins clash will not come until next June, at the Democratic convention. But it is interesting that Collins' chief for has chosen the North Harvard issue on which to criticize him. And if say, former Attorney General Edward or Senate President Maurice Donahue (although these two men will most likely for the governorship), or former Kennedy aides Kenneth O'Donnell or Lawrence O'Brien, or even former Lieutenant Governor Francis X. Bellotti, start having audible opinions on the North Harvard situation, the implication will be unmistakable that they also consider Collins vulnerable on this point.

At any rate, it didn't take long for politicians to recognize the explosiveness of the issue. Within hours after Wheelis' Monday eviction, news of the incident began to spread around the city, and the Legislature and City Council both took action.

State Senator Beryl W. Cohen 'D Brookline', at the urging of North Harvard community leaders, filed an emergency bill to modify the North Harvard renewal plan. The bill would require the BRA to change its renewal scheme from one of demolition and new construction to one of rehabilitation of existing structures. It would also stop the BRA from demolishing any more buildings or evicting any more residents for any reason except the non-payment of rent.

The City Council (which comes up for re-election next month) voted to ask the BRA to halt further evictions until the Legislature acts on Senator Cohen's bill. "They certainly don't want to appear to be lined up against the people," commented Coben, who noted that this was one of the few measures Councilor Katherine Kraven, an outspoken renewal foe, has ever gotten through the Council. (The bill has already been approved by the Senate Rules Committee and will go before the House Rules Committee Tuesday morning. A favorable vote is expected.)

Then in a surprise move Wednesday, Logue said that he will order no more evictions until after the next BRA meeting, August 19. The reason given was that cooperation among the residents had "improved considerably." Several residents, after Monday's arrests, had apparently decided that the fight was lost. The hard core, however, symbolized by Mr. and Mrs. Albert Redgate, were still adamant. "We're not cooperating. We still want our homes," she asserted.

Furthermore, Mayor Collins - until then a strong supporter of the Aliston BRA project - said that he had "recommended to the Boston Redevelopment Authority that it re-open the question of the best use of the six-acre tract after it has been cleared and that it reconsider as well the method of selecting a developer." (Italics supplied.) He continued that the recently enacted Housing Act of 1965 "makes it possible to achieve lower rents than were possible when the project was first planned." He proposed a blue-ribbon committee be selected to evaluate the best use of the land and select a project developer.

This new action by the Mayor was apparently aimed at neutralizing one of the strongest and most explosive arguments of the renewal loss - that poor residents were being deprived of what was theirs so that some rich sharpies could make a killing by putting up hurry apartment buildings. North Harvard leaders pointed to the fact that the developers of the lucrative site, Stadium Apartments, had been selected without competitive bidding. They also kept mentioning that, of the three principals behind the development concern, one was the former owner of Suffolk Downs and another the present owner of Rockingham Raceway. They insinuated that these men had been big campaign contributors of Collins. Of course, when questioned further, no one had any evidence of any improprieties. Why, they weren't accusing anyone of anything. But the innuendoes they were spreading around the city were about as subtle as one of the BRA's bulldozers.

Predictably, the local residents denounced Collins' proposal, under which they would still lose their homes. "It's a complete fraud, a sham," said Steven Goldin '64-4, the first resident to be evicted from North Harvard.

So, in a last-ditch effort aimed at getting help from federal authorities and dramatizing their plight even further, the residents announced that they were renting a bus to send a delegation today to confer with Robert Weaver, head of the federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, and other officials who might be able to help. And who was helping to set things up on the Washington end but another prime contender for the Saltonstall seat - Salty himself. "He's been really wonderful on this thing," says Goldin, "very helpful all along."

Weaver announced that he would not see the delegation, explaining, "It would be unfair for me to interject myself into what evidently is a local problem." Goldin, however, believes that Weaver may be persuaded to change his mind.

Meanwhile, solicited by Goldin, at least one national figure leaped into the fray Friday. New Jersey Congressman William B. Widnall, called Mayor Collins' proposal "totally inadequate and a cruel obituary to the hopes and desires of low income citizens." He termed the plan "a political whitewash... of a situation which has gotten too not politically" and went on to declare, "Unless this plan is changed to provide a halt to the eviction and demolition process while review of the blue-ribbon panel being made, Mayer Collins' statement will justly deserve a description as a political face-saving approach."

Goldin will try to contact other national figures on the Washington journey, and if he can get them to come out against the microcosmic Aliston project, the publicity generated will certainly make it very tough on Mayer Collins. And it will sorely tempt more local officials to link their names to the growing list of those coming out in favor of the tiny group at North Harvard. The issue could approach the status of Motherhood as something a politician had better be in favor of.

Right now, the single most important factor to the anti-renewal forces of North Harvard is time. The BRA will almost certainly continue to demolish vacant homes on the site today, probably including some of the substandard that Harvard owned. The more structures that are demolished, the less likely it will be that claims that the neighborhood can be rehabilitated will stand up.

If the House Rules Committee accepts Cohen's bill Tuesday, he believes that a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge would order the BRA to stop demolishing buildings and halt most of the evictions. But it would take until Wednesday at the earliest to get a restraining order. At the rate the BRA is tearing down buildings (this reporter's count is eight so far), most of the uninhabited structures could be gone by that time. About the only thing that would keep the BRA from knocking down everything in its way would be very strong pressure from Washington.

This is the aim of the Washington mission. Will they succeed in preserving their homes? Will Aliston become too loaded a political issue to ram the project through? Observers will just have to wait and see. At least one thing is certain, however: people with a knife sharpened either for urban renewal or for Mayor Collins will be watching with great interest indeed. And there are a lot of such people around.