Hicks Petition 'Frame' Makes Rift in Young Conservatives

Amid charge and counter-charge, and claims that they had been "framed" by the Boston Evening American, the Young Conservatives split wide open last night over the Hicks controversy, ending with the "dissolution" of the executive committee that had founded the organization.

Quoted at length in yesterday's American, Merwin K. Hart '40, stormy petrel of the Young Conservatives ever since its founding last fall, last night came to the conclusion that "I was framed." According to the officers of the Conservatives, the American told Hart over the telephone at 12.30 o'clock yesterday afternoon that they had "no" signatures to the petition that the American was sponsoring in opposition to the appointment of Granville Hicks as an American History Fellow.

In a statement issued by the group last night, it says that "Merwin K. Hart, Jr. has been completely unauthorized in his statements" and "has resigned his post on the executive committee."

"I Haven't . . . He Has!"

Asked to comment on this, Hart declared: "I haven't resigned from the executive committee but it has been disbanded." Michael P. Grace '40, president, then hastened to declare that "I have his resignation in my pocket." The statements issued in the official declaration made public by Grace and those made by Hart concerning the way in which the dissolution of the executive committee took place were also conflicting.

The divided responsibility has resulted in conflicting expressions of opinion, on one hand by the executive committee, and on the other by the rest of the group, both of which were designated as the "official" stand of the Young Conservatives. Thus it was announced that they were in support of Franco and that they weren't, that they favored the Teacher's Oath and that they didn't, and yesterday that they both opposed and favored the appointment of Hicks, at one and the same time.

Now that the anti-Hicks faction has been "dissolved," they have come out in favor of his appointment, and in doing so revealed an apparent lack of foundation for the story carried by the American and Daily Record yesterday concerning the "storm of student protest" the appointment had aroused. At 12:30 o'clock there were "no" signatures; and later in the afternoon an American reporter was seen trying to collect signatures for a petition on Hicks, a facsimile of which had appeared earlier in the American.

The "official" statement of the Young Conservatives which Grace made public last night says that they "approve the appointment of Mr. Hicks to the tutorial staff of Harvard because they feel that all phases of thought should be part of an educational endeavor . . ." but they "are still in opposition to Communism and all other Isis."