Students Stand 6 to 1 for Food Savings; Council Committee Rejects HLU Proposal

By a ratio of six to one, the student body Friday endorsed the food saving program begun last May as a relief measure for starving Europe, but rejected, three to one, a proposal that would restore desserts to noon menus and substitute a pledge of weekly money contributions.

Eighty-five percent of the voters, polled by the Student Council Food Relief Committee in House and Union dining halls, favored retention of the present bread, cake, and wheat cereals rationing; 14 percent disapproved, and one percent expressed no choice. The money pledge proposal was rejected by 68 percent of, the voters and approved by 23 percent, with nine percent silent.

48 Percent For More Cuts

Reaction to a third proposal which would extend rationing to other food items agreed to by the Administration was almost evenly split. Forty-eight percent were pro, 41 percent con and 10 percent undecided.

Only a "very small" amount of contributions was pledged on the ballots, Richard D. Campbell '48, chairman of the Committee, said yesterday. "However," he added, "the Committee hopes those who pledged and other students will contribute to the famine relief fund as they see fit." Beginning next week, collection boxes will be set up at dining hall entrances on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

165 Votes At Lowell

Although the controversial weekly money pledge was proposed by the Lowell House Committee, only 165 Lowell diners voted. Average attendance at Lowell meals is 340.

Patrons of the giant Business School dining hall possibly will be asked to vote on the questions next week, Campbell said.

A total of 909 out of a summer population of 1,450 eligibles voted in the Friday referendum.

Perhaps the most powerful argument favoring the retention of the rationing measures was its success during the last three and a half weeks of the spring term, when a 5,000-pound wheat con- servation and a $2,400 cash saving were credited to the program. Contributions have been sent through Boston's Unitarian Service Committee to students at the University of Paris and the University of Vienna, and $300 was allocated to tubercular students at the University of Grenoble last week.

The most controversial issue settled by Friday's balloting was the question whether the Committee's chief working funds should come from student monetary donations or dietary sacrifice.

Edric A. Weld, Jr. '46, Student Council president, said yesterday in a letter announcing the results of the referendum that "substitutions were not included on the ballots for fear of further complicating the choice, but the Food Committee feels that the vote was to go without the amount of food and that substitutions would violate the spirit of this decisions.