BUCK URGES LIBERAL POLICY IN JIM CROW CONTROVERSY

"In regard to the participation of Negro athletics on Harvard teams I personally hope that the H.A.A. will realize its responsibilities in formulating a liberal policy," declared Paul H. Buck, associate professor of History, in an interview last week.

Professor Buck, who has made a study of the history of the South, and who is the author of a book on the Reconstruction, "The Read to Reunion," gave an outline of the part played by the Negro race in this country today.

"The colored man has always been and remains the most oppressed and exploited group of Americans," Professor Buck said, citing the limitations on his political activity, his opportunity for earning a living, his social life, and his opportunities for self-improvement.

"Few people, including the great majority of Negroes, have ever advocated any real revolutionary change in the situation," he continued.

Legal Citizen

"This is testified to by the fact that in all our great crises the Negro as a loyal and faithful citizen has tried to serve the nation to the best of his capacities. And yet, paradoxically enough, even his discrimination has operated to prevent him from participation.

Professor Buck pointed out that in spite of all the obstacles in his way the Negro has made notable progress in recent years. For instance, he has become a better farmer; he has purchased more homes; he has becomes more of an asset both in urban and rural communities; he has improved his schools and colleges.

He has entered many professions and achieved distinction in them. He has built Negro businesses which give him a better economic status.

"Quite rightly he takes great pride in these achievements, especially since so many of them have come through his own efforts.

"And in this immediate emergency he does not want his patriotism limited by discrimination in army or naval service or in the defense industries.

"This newer assertiveness has been encountered in places by a recrudescence of anti-Negro feeling. But more significant is the fact that in both North and South, white elements of society have welcomed the movement of the Negro upward, believing that America will be a much more wholesome nation if the Negro can contribute his brains and muscles to the welfare of society."

In relation to the recent case of a Harvard Negro athlete and Annapolis, Professor Buck pointed out that nothing embarrasses sound cooperation between white and colored groups more than gratuitous and unnecessary insults.