I.U.S. Affiliation and Racial Issue Tested Student Association's Unity

Eight hundred delegates at Madison, speaking officially for schools attended by over one million American students, tested in microcosm a nation's state of union. Theirs was the diversity of their elders and theirs was the chance to show whether isolationism and prejudice will hamstring tomorrow's adult generation. Happily compromise won the day on the two big issues--one international and one domestic--which had threatened to send disgruntled delegations home.

The international issue was the nature of the relationship between NSA and the year-old International Union of Students. From its headquarters in Prague, the I.U.S. had steered a course far closer to the mores and ideologies of students in Soviet-oriented countries than to those of U.S. campuses. But the I.U.S. boasts a constructive service program embracing relief and low-cost travel; only a tiny minority wanted to shy away completely from I.U.S. affiliation. What most delegates looked for--and evolved--was an affiliation scheme which would carry with it complete NSA independence from I.U.S. political activities.

The domestic issue was discrimination in the shape of quota systems and Jim Crow facilities. What would ordinarily have amounted to a simple conflict of attitude between white delegates became complicated by the easily exploitable character of the entire affair for such agitation groups as Young Progressive Citizens of America and American Youth for Democracy. Negro delegates found themselves the focus of solicitous attentions. They were urged not to "back down." Only the counter-efforts of interested liberals from both North and South finally gained Negro support for give-and-take.

The ultimate agreement--reached in a plenary session tense with the crossfire of eloquent oratory called for a Constitutional clause affirming every man's right to equal educational opportunity, and a section of the by-laws looking forward to "the eventual elimination of segregated educational systems anywhere in the United States" with due regard for "the legal limitations involved." The crucial provision was complete regional autonomy. Despite this, conservative Southern leader Lloyd Teakle of Louisiana State University could privately remark: "I guess we can get this thing through back home. I'll just show them the Constitution and hope no one else shows them those by-laws."

It is out of issues big and little that leadership emerges and alignments take shape. At Madison the political jockeying occured quite conspicuously: at virulent odds were the Catholic colleges, representing some 35 percent of the votes, and the Communist-Party-led delegates (from duly-invited front organizations and campuses where those influence elections), representing perhaps 9 percent of the votes. In between stood a centrist liberal 17 percent organized by Don S. Willner '47--national chairman of Students for Democratic Action--to check the aggressive forward positions taken by both extremes. Forty percent of the Convention's strength did not engage in concerted activity. Nevertheless when the chips were down the slate of officers advanced by the SDA group won a near clean sweep.

NSA's three key officers president William Welsh of Kentucky's Beren College; 'Ralph Dungan, vice-president in charge of domestic affairs from St. Joseph's College near Philadelphia; and Robert Smith 1G, international affairs commission head--comprise a neat balance of the divergent interests in America's student community. Coupled with the pattern of political power which produced it, this leadership spells a progressive middle-way for NSA which can win the recognition of hostile administrations and the constitutional ratification of suspicious student electorates.

This is the final installment of a series on the National Student Association Constitutional Convention by Sollg S. Harrison '48, a College delegate to Madison and a member of the CRIMSON editorial board.