CAMBRIDGE CAMOUFLAGE

Any condemnation of the Cambridge City Council's current attack on Harvard would not only be adding to the plethora of frantic phrases already heaped on the incident, but would be providing additional fodder with which to keep alive in the press a biased and sensational publicity story so strongly tinged with politics and so little concerned with academic matters that it deserves the speediest possible interment.

The proposal to set up this University as a corporate municipality wrenched out of the heart of its parent city contains some intriguing possibilities for both parties. Frankly, this editorial would be devoted to a discussion of such possibilities were it not for one all-important fact--namely, that the whole affairs is so obviously a smoke-screen conjured up to obliterate the growing sentiment for Plan E government in Cambridge. With this desperate red herring, the Council seeks to delude voters into believing that Harvard is using its vast scholastic tools only as instruments to shield a predatory political influence whose present objective is the domination of Cambridge government. In this way, the city fathers hope that a city manger form of government will be defeated at the polls, thus preserving their own lucrative positions.

That they entered their wrath and their attack on an educational institution is highly unfortunate. Any unprejudiced analysis has always shown that Harvard leans over backward to shun official political relationships. To bellow that Harvard has a desire to rule Cambridge, and that therefore it must, like some naughty school boy, be expelled from the community, serves only to show the political hue of the picture. The council's cunning brush is attempting to swab Harvard with such brilliant and tawdry colors, that beside it Plan E may look dull, important, and anaemic on the ballot.