Smith Professor Bares 'Red Cell' Here in 30's

Congressional investigators seeking Communists in education turned their attention to the University yesterday, hearing the first of three witnesses testify on the existence of a Communist cell of faculty members here during the late 1930's.

Robert G. Davis '29, professor of English at Smith and a teacher here from 1933 to 1943, gave the House Un-American Activities Committee the names of at least ten former Harvard faculty members who allegedly were members of the cell with him.

Included in the list is one man still on the faculty, Wendell H. Furry, associate professor of Physics. The professor could not be reached for comment last night.

Hicks Affirms Cell

Schedules to testify tomorrow before the committee, chaired by Harold H. Velde (R-III.) are ex-Communist Granville Hicks '23, a teaching fellow in American History here in 1938-39, and Daniel J. Boorstin '34, associate professor of American History at the University of Chicago and one of the men on Davis' list.

Hicks yesterday told the CRIMSON that he would testify that there had been a Communist cell here.

Speaking before 300 spectators and a barrage of newsreel and television cameras, Davis told the committee that he had joined the cell here in 1937 and quit it in 1939 because of the Soviet-Nazi pact. He said he has no evidence that the cell still exists at Harvard.

Davis stated the cell at its peak had a membership of 15 faculty members and graduate students, but testified that there were undergraduate "communist organizations" at the same time.

Definite Objectives

The former Briggs-Copeland instructor in English listed the objectives of the cell as first to influence policies of organizations to which the members belonged; second, to educate themselves in Marxism, and third, to plan fund-raising activities for the party and front organizations.

Aside from Furry and Boorstin, Davis named eight other former teachers as cell members. They are Jack B. Rackliffe '34, John H. Reynolds '29, Richard B. Schlatter, former instructor in History, Richard M. Goodwin '34, instructor in Physics and later assistant professor of Economics, George Mayberry, Israel Halperin, Ruby Sherr, and Herbert E. Robbins '35.

Davis also named Louis Harap '28 and William Parry, a graduate student here from 1928 to 1932.