Progressive Student Groups To Plan Merger In Convention Here

Over 300 delegates and observers from scores of colleges and high schools in the United States will flock to the University on December 27 at the invitation of the Harvard Liberal Union, when three progressive student organizations hold a National Merger Convention.

The three day conference will unite the Student Defenders of Democracy, the Student League for Progressive Action, of which the H.L.U. is a chapter, the College Division of the Committee to Defend America, and other local campus groups, into a large nationwide organization, the name of which will be chosen at the convention.

"The new action group will work nationally and locally, to promote a program of domestic and foreign policy aimed at increasing and bettering democracy throughout the world," according to a statement from the National Merger Committee.

Keynote speakers at the convention, which will conclude on December 30, will be Lewis Mumford, author, and Reinhold Neibuhr, member of the Sponsoring Committee, president of the Union Theological Seminary and chairman of the Committee for Democratic Action.

All Groups Were Interventionist

"The participating groups are all opposed to isolationism and appeasement in foreign policy and to the force of Fascism and Communism in domestic affairs," the National Merger Committee said.

"We stand for vigilant maintenance of civil liberties and abolition of racial and religious discrimination in civil life and defense effort. We insist that labor's legitimate rights to organize freely, to bargain collectively, and to strike, be protected. And we strongly favor voluntary and impartial mediation in defense labor disputes. We favor maintenance and increase of educational budgets and social services like Federal Housing, the NYA and the CCC."

Among members of the committee sponsoring the convention are: William Agar, Roger Baldwin '05, Ulric Bell, Stephen Vincent Benet, Bruce Bliven, Van Wyck Brooks '08, David Dubinsky, Clark Eichelberger, Hon. Thomas H. Eliot '28, John Farrar, Carl J. Friedrich Professor of Government, Harry D. Gideonse, Hans Kohn, Max Lerner, Francis E. McMahon, William A. Neilson '99, Rex Stout, Herbert Bayard Swope, Sr., and Henry P. Van Dusen.

Members of the Secretariat of the National Student Merger Committee are: John S. MacCauley, Notre Dame '41, Victor J. Hillery, Brown '41, and Adam Yarmolinsky '43. The headquarters of the Committee are the 316 Fifth Avenue, New York City.