Law School Forum Marks Years of Talks, Tussles

During the past five years a host of prominent men and women in widely-diversified fields have come to Cambridge for a common purpose: the free discussion and debate of important, timely subjects. Harold Laski, Al Capp, Norman Thomas, Faye Emerson, James T. Farrell, Bill Mauldin, a colorful and varied array of personalities, have all been brought to the University scene by the Law School Forum.

"The purpose of the Forum," according to President Richard Gold 3L, "is to bring topics of current interest to the Boston-Cambridge area. The founders of the organization felt that the Law School and the College needed some outside discussion program such as this."

In 1946, Jerome L. Rapaport '45 organized the Law School Forum with these objects in mind. He is also one of the founders of the New Boston Committee which gained sweeping victories in the November 6 Boston elections.

Now five years old, the Forum has had a large audience in Cambridge. It has brought a number of distinguished speakers to Rindge Tech Auditorium, to Sanders Theatre, and to New Lecture Hall. And it has also been the subject of several disputes.

Curley Smear

In the recent election campaign, Rapaport's Law School Forum activities provoked a direct smear. In a pre-election speech, James Michael Curley attacked Rapaport for having invited Norman Thomas to speak on a panel in 1947. He flung mud at the NBC director, claiming that, as president of the Law School Forum, he had tried to bring to Boston "a subversive, a communist element in our society."

A few weeks before this attack, a man calling himself "a reporter looking for a story about the Law School Forum," presented himself at the office in Hastings Hall. He began to rummage through the files, and unearthed some correspondence concerning Norman Thomas' appearance in Cambridge. This was later used as material for a smear campaign against the NBC.

The Forum has been the center of numerous disputes. In 1947, when the British Socialist Harold Laski was denied the right to speak in Cambridge schools by the School Committee, the Forum invited him to speak at Harvard. Laski drew an overflow crowd at Sanders Theatre.

Catholics Upset

Recently, the Forum incurred the anger of the Catholic Church for scheduling Paul Blanchard as a speaker. Blanchard, author of "American Freedom and Catholic Power," is a bitter opponent of the Church's secular policies, and after the appeared here, several Churches turned down invitations from the Forum.

On one occasion, the Forum group wrote to a number of Hollywood producers, asking them to participate in the program, "Are Movies Better than Ever?" With the celluloid industry at a rather low ebb, one producer mistook this for a jest and furiously referred to the Forum as "a juvenile organization that has nothing better to talk about."

The Law School Forum carries on a number of other functions, in addition to its regular programs of discussions. One of these is the "School for Young Lawyers," begun three years ago as a regular part of the Forum's activities. It is composed of a series of panel discussions for Law School men, at which prominent barristers discuss opportunities for young lawyers.

Taft Future Speaker

A second extra-regular function is the arrangement of individual lectures and discussions on particular phases of law. In recent years, Judge Samuel Leibowitz, famous Brooklyn trial lawyer, has appeared.

The next individual speaker scheduled by the Forum will be Dr. Richard Ford, director of Harvard's Legal Medicine Department. Ford will discuss several of his most famous and unusual cases in Langdell Courtroom on November 27.

Today, the topic is "How Free is the Press?", while on November 30, the Forum will present a program called "Is the Musical Comedy Replacing Serious Drama?" The list of speakers for the latter program includes Richard Rodgers, Marc Connelly, and Lillian Hellman.

With disputes concerning academic freedom continuing in intensity, the Forum will present on December 14 "Freedom on the College Campus." For the spring Gold revealed that the Forum will treat segregation and the political scene.