HLU Refuses to Submit To Control of State ADA

The Harvard Liberal Union reaffirmed its status as an autonomous political organization last night by narrowly defeating a move to bind its future actions to the policy decisions of the state A.D.A.

The long and often heated debate over the policy motion overshadowed the original purpose of the meeting-to endorse state candidates in the November election.

After brief and almost perfunctory discussion, the group voted overwhelmingly to refuse its endorsement to Democratic Senatorial candidate Foster Furcolo, who has attacked A.D.A. several times in recent months.

No motion was even made to tender the organization's support to gubernatorial candidate Robert F. Murphy. Murphy has stated that he would refuse endorsement by the A.D.A. state organization. The H.L.U. membership contented itself with endorsing the candidacies of Democrat James Gardner for Congress in the 13th District, and Democrat Summer Kaplan of Brookline for state representative. Kaplan himself addressed the group in the early stages of last night's meeting.

Independent of State A.D.A

The controversial policy motion, offered by Political Actin Chairman Christopher Niebuhr '56, would have pledged the H.L.U. not to contradict the official policies adopted by the state wide A.D.A. organization to endorse only those candidates for whom it actually intended to work, and to refrain from working for any candidates not endorsed by the state A.D.A. The latter provision would have automatically prevented any debate at all on a question like the endorsement of Furcolo, since the state organization has declined to support him.

In an effort to soften the effect of the motion, Secretary Humphrey Fisher '55 offered an amendment explicitly stating that the H.L.U: would retain its independent authority and freedom of action in campus affairs. But after nearly two hours of debate, the membership over-rode the amendment and went on to vote down the original motion by a 16 to 11 margin.

Traditional H.L.U. Policy

H.L.U. president Philippe Villers '55 called the decision a "re-assertion of the traditional H.L.U. policy of having its own membership decide all important issues."

Some of the motion's supporters charged during the debate that failure to approve the proposal would mean, in effect, that the H.L.U. was disassociating itself from further co-operative action with the state A.D.A. But Villers said, "There seems to be no likelihood of this. We expect to continue as we have done for seven years in the past."

At present the H.L.U.'s relationship with the state A.D.A. is somewhat ambiguous. The group has a representative on the 16 member governing body of the Massachusetts A.D.A., but the H.L.U. is an affiliated chapter rather than a regular member chapter of the state organization. Last night's motion apparently resulted largely from a feeling on the part of certain H.L.U. members that the group should clarify its position within the state body.