BEWARE OF POWER POLITICS

To the Editors of the Crimson:

As a second year graduate student in American Civilization, as a teaching fellow in History and Lit., and as a former Harvard undergraduate (Radcliffe '70) who lived through our shattering Spring of '69. I think I've learned a lot about Harvard--a lot of the Graduate School administration who sent out the March 8 letter (eliminating staff tuition scholarships. etc.) and the students who formed the Union tonight apparently did not learn. And that is that only politic communication can maintain this community; the alternative, power politics and confrontation, is sure to destroy it.

No doubt the March 8 letter was written in bad faith, inhumanity and blindness. There has to be a solution to the fellowship finance problem (and the March 8 letter is no solution!) but it must be found together by students, faculty and administration, with full budget disclosure, good faith, and VISION. Obviously, long range goals must be explicit. So far, it seems that faculty members are supportive of the students' rejection of the March 8 "plan"; therefore we must remember the lesson of '69--that "demands" and confrontation will inevitably alienate many faculty members! Let's NOT get caught up in the high of a new "community" (and a Union does fill a vast impersonal void at Harvard), but remember our larger community. We're all in this together, administration, faculty, graduate students, even undergraduates; if the University sinks financially, we all go with it. The financial crisis IS undoubtedly acute, but we mustn't let it atomize or polarize us further. We MUST have open, cooperative and creative thinking and planning to survive. Elizabeth R. McKinsey