Marxist' Magazine Attacks University, Conant, CRIME

Harvard, long considered the "Kremlin on the Charles" in certain right-wing quarters, is now being attacked from the other side.

The College presently enjoys the unique, though somewhat confusing position of being considered an overgrown Communist cell, and, simultaneously, a pesthole of Fascism.

While ex-Red Louis Budenz has attacked Harvard as Communistic in the American Legion Magazine, the spring, 1952, issue of "New Foundations" reverses this policy, and puts the College, President Conant, the Board of Overseers, and the CRIMSON on the fascist pole of totalitarianism--using terms such as "white supremacy," "racism," genocide," "segregation," and "quota system."

Outlining the Principles of the magazine the editors write: "'New Foundations is a publication guided by the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism. the philosophy of Socialism, and is dedicated to the democratic rights and interests of American college students."

Two articles in the present issue discuss Harvard and the cross-burning incident of February 6. In a piece called "The Harvard incident: Signal of New Dangers on the Campus," the editors advocate: "Demand that the Harvard administration put an end to its policy of segregating Negro students in the dormitories!

"End the quota system at Harvard!"

The story refers to President Conant as"... one of the most vociferous advocates of UMT and ... one of the first to demand that anti-Communist witch hunts be instituted in the school..."

But the editors do not stop with their snipe at Conant: "The administration at Harvard and the big businessmen and generals who compose the Board of Over-seas (Overseers) helped to prepare the way for the cross burning by maintaining a quota system ... and by following jim crow hiring practices which permit only two Negro teachers on Harvard's immense faculty."

The administration, further, tried "for ten days ... to hush up the case. Only the pressure of ... students at Harvard and pretests from thousands of people in our country and throughout the world forced it to take the weak action of putting the students on probation."

The editors of "New Foundations" find enormous implications in the affair. It was "an effort to impose on all Harvard students. . .the system of lunch terror that is characteristic of the KKK." It "represents something now. Never before in the 300 year history of the school has such a violent white supremacy act taken place." Even further, "It is the bringing of the policy of genocide onto the campuses."

In the second article concerning the cross burning, the editors aim chiefly at the CRIMSON and its "suppression" of the incident. Ten days after the cross burned, "under threat of a mass leaflet, the Harvard CRIMSON printed a letter of condemnation. . . .(and). . .a short, nebulous editorial."

The CRIMSON, "which, by its silence became a party to this act of racism," and the Harvard Liberal Union, "alternated in playing down the mass and spontaneous character of the movement, played it up as just another Harvard Liberal Union activity."

After two students were put on probation, the H.L.U., "seizing on this concession of the administration, was successfully able to kill off the petition."

Finally, the authors urge that: "Against this cancerous growth in our country and on our campuses, feeding on the virus of white supremacy and brutality generated by the Korean war, the united movement of all students must wipe out every manifestation of genocide, white supremacy, and discrimination from the campus.