Sen. Harold Hughes (D-Iowa) will be the featured speaker today at a noon rally for New England peace candidates in Boston's Faneuil Hall.

The lunch-hour rally is the culmination of the efforts of 75 to 80 students interested in raising funds for peace candidates in the upcoming November election.

According to Charles E. Schumer '71, who helped conceive the student project, the group "was organized because we just could not sit still when so many good peace candidates are running."

Schumer thinks the loosely-knit group of interested students is unique at Harvard in that it "wants to avoid ego tripping and bureaucratic hassles thatfrequently occur in Harvard peace groups."

Formed strictly as a fund raising unit, he said, the group started by calling various doctors, lawyers and businessmen around Boston in an attempt to gather funds for various peace candidates.

In letters written by the students, these professionals were encouraged to give up a day's pay for peace and to contact colleagues and ask them to do likewise.

In a three-week period approximately 2500 doctors and lawyers and 300 businessmen have been contacted and funds of nearly $20,000 received.

Donors were asked to write on their checks which candidates they wanted their money to help finance Contributions without preference were distributed to various candidates throughout the U. S. by the students.

However, there was a special emphasis placed on the funding of certain New England peace candidates, Schumer said. Contributions have been directed to Senatorial candidate and former Vermont Governor Philip Hoff and Connecticut Senatorial nominee Joseph R. Duffy. Both are Democratic nominees.

After the rally on Wednesday the group will place follow-up calls in a final effort to gain support before the election.