The Captive Audience

The hullaballoo of political campaigns, when in the form of rallies and occasional parades, is not really intolerable. One can always escape by merely walking away. But when candidates pursue the fleeing voter with malignant sound trucks, the freedom to campaign becomes a license to annoy.

For some reason, candidates for the Cambridge City Council decided in the last election that most undecided voters were holed-up near the Harvard Yard. And so, throughout the campaign, there was a constant parade of sound trucks through the Square and down Mass. Avenue. They blared patriotic sentiment and partisan propaganda until some students began to wonder if the democratic process was so wonderful after all.

Finally last Tuesday it was over. Students thought that they could choose their own brand of music and platitude for at least a year. But apparently the sound truck idea had caught on, for Lamont still continued to echo occasionally to the blaring of music and speeches from organizations like the A.F. of L. or the Holy Cross student association.

The trouble lies in the lack of any licensing system for sound trucks. While the Cambridge police are strict about parades they do not consider a 120 decibel juggernaut particularly worthy of supervision. Rather, they deem their verbal permission sufficient control of the trucks, adding only the afterthought that it would be nice to stay away from hospitals, schools and court-rooms.

Police admit that the addendum to their permission doesn't always have much effect. In fact, officers have had to silence trucks that were interrupting court proceedings. No one, as yet, has seen a policeman shooing a Councilman's truck away from the Square, and this is natural. If there were required registration for sound trucks, plus laws forbidding them access to such obvious places as hospitals and schools, the problem would be solved. Until then, students will live periodically shut off from nature by the closed windows that fruitlessly try to keep out the raucous strains of That's Amore.