Mass Young Dems Try Ousting College YD's For Backing McCarthy

The Young Democrats of Massachusetts is trying to purge the 2500 College Young Democrats from its midst because of College Clubs' December endorsement of Eugene J. McCarthy for president.

According to Massachusetts YD president Peter Di Chicco, the purge probably won't succeed because the college clubs have at least half the votes on the parent organization--enough to stop the movement.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Democratic State Committee Chairman Lester S. Hyman is frantically trying to negotiate a compromise between various leaders, but thus far has failed.

The compromise may involve starting an independent college Democratic organization--one directly responsible to the Democratic State Committee, instead of the State YD's. In a secret meeting on February 18 the leaders of the college clubs decided to study the formation of a new organization in the aftermath of the charter challenges.

The 33 college YD clubs--including the Harvard-Radcliffe and the Harvard Law and Grad clubs, the two largest clubs in the national Party--technically face revocation of their club charters on March 17 for an infraction of the national YD constitution. It states that no club may endorse a candidate prior to his nomination by the Party.

Too Hot

The national college YD group which also has jurisdiction over the Federation of Massachusetts College YDs (the group which endorsed McCarthy) refused to prosecute the same infraction in its constitution because, as one college YD officer put it, "it's just too hot to handle; others have violated this provision before and it can be over-looked again."

"No one prosecutes anything like this," he continued, "unless they really have something against the candidate who the group endorsed."

At the February 8 meeting when the college charter issue was brought up, Di Chicco ruled that a vote for McCarthy at the college convention in December was equivalent to an endorsement, constituting a violation of the constitution.

A motion was made to challenge his ruling, but it failed by one vote. A two-thirds vote will be necessary at the March 17 meeting to revoke the college charters.