University Refuses to Fight on Issue of Teachers' Oath Repeal

While the Teachers' Oath became once more a potent issue in State politics yesterday, Harvard slipped into the background in the annual fight for the measure's repeal.

Despite abortive cries of "radicalism" and "ignorance" raised against President Conant and several members of the Faculty at the public hearing in Gardiner Auditorium, the University admitted that they would let others carry on the fight this year.

Chase Against Pressure

Dean Chase, who recorded Harvard's stand, admitted that College partisans would not organize a pressure group at the State House, and pointed out that Governor Saltonstall has promised he would sign a repeal bill if it passed the General Court.

Samuel E. Morison '02, professor of History, whose colorful speech two years ago roused a similar audience by dramatic quotations from Hamlet, said last night that the advocates of repeal will not "stick their necks out."

He said that anything coming from Harvard is likely to arouse local opposition and that he was willing that others take the lead in opposing what President Conant has called an "offensive piece of legislation."

Call Conant "Red"

Charges that Conant, Justice Frankfurter, and the presidents of M. I. T. Tufts, Radcliffe, Wellesley, and Smith were all communists was made by Henry J. Sullivan, philosopher, who said he had been "liquidated" by Harvard's President. Sullivan had asked for retention of the oath law on the grounds that it was an important barrier against the spread of "red" propaganda.

"The spearhead of the attack against the oath of allegiance is from Harvard because of their great advocacy of Academic freedom," asserted ex-Representative Thomas Dorgan of Dorchester, fiery sponsor of the original law. "But that does not mean freedom to do anything they please."

Student Union Played

Dorgan attacked, among other things, the Student Union, which he said, was an example of the seditious elements permitted to exist unless checked by strict application of the oath law.

James S. Lanigan '39, speaking for the Harvard Student Union, demanded that the law be erased from the statutes on the grounds that "the effect of a teachers' oath reflects most heavily on us as students."

He said he represented, besides the Student Union, the Student Christian movement, the Cambridge Union of University Teachers, and groups in Wellesley and Simmons.

Finding the law "a tool which would be used for religious persecution when more intolerant spirit set in", Henry J. Cadbury, Hollis Professor of Divinity, attacked the statute.