Boycott Leaders Won't Be Prosecuted

By a decisive 4-1 vote, members of the Boston School Committee last night defeated a motion by Mrs. Louise Day Hicks to prosecute the leaders of Wednesday's school boycott.

Mrs. Hicks, who firmly opposed the boycott, said she had proposed the measures against the Negro leaders because the "boycott was a clear violation of the law," and "no person is exempt from our laws." "We should not have two sets of laws in Boston," she said. She added, however, that she would abide by the decision of the group.

Three of the Committeemen who opposed the motion agreed that the boycott was illegal, but said criminal action against Canon James P. Breeden and Noel Day would "serve no useful purpose." Describing the boycott leaders as "misguided but not criminal," Thomas S. Eisenstant said such court action would be "negative, disruptive, and inflammatory."

Arthur J. Gartland, the only school Committeeman who acknowledges the existence of alleged de facts segregation in Boston, alone doubted that the boycott had violated a State law which makes it illegal for anyone to induce a child to cut school.

Gartland also stood alone in supporting a motion to cooperate with the Boston branch of the NAACP in the form of a six-man commission to work with the Harvard School of Education on a "Boston plan" for school integration.

The motion, introduced by Gartland and tabled at a special School Committee hearing Feb. 19, was voted down 4-1.

The argument which preceded the vote revolved around the testimony of Thomas F. Pettigrew, lecturer on Social Sciences, and Gerald S. Lessor, professor of Education and Developmental Psychology, who spoke before the Committee Feb. 19.

Eisenstadt criticized the testimony because he said it consisted of "many assertions but no statistics. The professors gave no proof that racial imbalance affects the learning ability of Negro children," he said.

Reached at home last night, Pettigrew dismissed Eisenstadt's statement as "incorrect." He also denied the charge of William E. O'Connor, chairman of the School Committee, that the School of Education had supported the boycott and thus proved itself prejudiced in the dispute.