Forbes Rally Raps Review Of Ec. Dept.

A crowd of more than 250 yesterday heard speakers at a rally in Forbes Plaza denounce Harvard and the members of the Visiting Committee on Economics for serving the American ruling class.

The Harvard Union for Radical Political Economics sponsored the rally-held while the Visiting Committe was meeting in the penthouse of Holyoke Center, adjacent to the site of the rally-to present an alternate idea of whom the University should serve.

Radical members of the Department of Economics planned the demonstration although Henry Rosovsky, professor of Economics, had asked them to talk to the committee about radical economics.

Kinds of People

"Our first reaction was that we had nothing to say to the Committee," Arthur MacEwan, assistant professor of Economics, said, "However, we decided that we should take some action to point out that this is the kind of people who are in control of Harvard-and not just symbolically."

Rosovsky also invited MacEwan specifically to come speak to the Committee. MacEwan said that he refused because "to meet with the Committee is a sanction to their-ill-got and ill-exercised power."

He also stated that "A good university, which could exist in a radically different society, would serve the kind of people represented by the speakers" -a construction worker, an Indian,members of the Bread and Roses secretarial group, a representative from the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, and a representative of the United Electrical Workers.

The Caravan Theater presented skits on pollution, the socialization of Harvard students, and the oppression of blacks by business, the government and the universities.

Janeki N. Tschannerl, an Indian, began the rally, saying that she had come to speak because "The people who are sitting up there (in Holyoke Center) make decisions (which affect the people I know in villages in India and elsewhere."

John Pelich, a construction worker from Lawrence and a Vietnam veteran, said that "What economics is supposed to be about is helping people."

"The guys up there are the kind of guys who send people like me to Vietnam," he added.