Sanders UMT Rally Meets Opposition Boos, Heckling

In an atmosphere scented with name-calling and heckling by about 100 UMT supporters, a group of 350 students rallied at Sanders Theater Saturday to demonstrate opposition to President Truman's proposed draft legislation. The meeting was sponsored by the Harvard Committee for Wallace.

Until a dramatic plea by Pitirim A. Sorokin, professor of Sociology, calmed the gathering, violence threatened on more than one occasion. Professor Sorokin appealed to the opposition, asking them to hear the speakers without voicing protest, and asserted he would be keenly disappointed if the right of free speech could not be heard at Harvard.

His speech had an immediate effect on the meeting, but the hecklers walked out on masse during a later speech by Geoffrey W. White '48.

Margolis Booed

The first speaker, Emanuel Margolis 1G, president of the Wallace Committee, was greeted by a series of cat-calls and boos. "I thought we were still living in a democracy where people have the right to talk," he shouted at the demonstrators.

Speeches by Stanley G. Karson '49 president of the University chapter of the American Veteran's Committee, U. Richard G. Neisser '50, of the Liberal Union, and Irene C. Tinker, Radcliffe '48 could be heard only in the first few rows.

Professor Sorokin expressed his opposition to UMT, stating that it would be "a great step towards a third World War."

John D. Wild, professor of Government, who spoke after the demonstrators had left, called for "strength of purpose" rather than conscription to avoid war.

"Speaking as an American citizen," he said, "UMT seems to verge on madness, or as close to a declaration of war as can be found."