Sullivan Admits His Anti-Red Resolution Is Unconstitutional

Mike Sullivan, the City Councilman who thinks of himself as a lonely knight tilting against the dragon of Communism, revealed yesterday that he knew his resolution banning the use of the words "Lenin" and Leningrad" anywhere in Cambridge was unconstitutional.

"I realize that the thing was not constitutional, but the point of bringing it up was to put it before the people," Sullivan said, referring to the resolution unanimously passed by the City Council on December 26 at the end of its last meeting of 1939.

Mayor John W. Lyons allowed the order to lapse by not signing it before the end of the year, after an opinion by City Solicitor Richard G, Evarts '13 that the measure exceeded the Council's authority.

Sullivan was ready to put his conception of himself as St. George into literal practice. Late at night on December 14, the day before Earl Browder Spoke at Tech, he told the CRIMSON that he intended to dress up in a suit of armor, mount a eart-horse and ride down to joust with the Communist leader. He admitted yesterday that his resolution against Lenin was an even more effective publicity stunt.

"You have to get at the foundation of a thing to be effective," he said, giving his reasons for choosing Lenin as the focus of his attack on Communism. In his view of the Finnish War. "Russia is a big boulder coming down on a pebble; but the pebble was able to slip aside, and now it is dynamiting the houlder."

Sullivan did not seem bothered by the fact that editorially he was almost universally attacked by the newspapers. The New York Rerald Tribune called it a "ridiculous resolution." the Times recommended that he be sent either to Russia or Germany to observe the effects of censorship, and the Cambridge Chronicle had an editorial titled "Tut, Tut, Sully, Tut, Tut."

He thinks his issue is still alive, and he may re-introduce it he said.