Ripon Criticizes Fall 'Experiment'

In a 125-page state-by-state and over-all analysis of the 1964 elections released today, the Ripon Society blamed the Goldwater "experiment" for leading at least 43 congressional and two senatorial seats for the Republican Party, attacked Republican leadership for blunders in campaign strategy and technique, and suggested that a formal apology be made to Martin Luther King for Republican unfair campaign practices.

In a letter to the Republican National Committee, which is meeting in Chicago this weekend, the Executive Committee of the Society said, "Only through hard thought leading to constructive action can the Republican Part regain the allegiance of the millions of American it needs to become a vital majority party."

Thayer Hall proctor Thomas Petri, third year student in the Law School, was editor of Election '64, the Society's report. He was joined in the effort by J. Eugene Marans, a third year student in the Law School, who wrote a section of the report dealing with "Strategies and Issues" of the campaign. This section laid great emphasis on Goldwater's handling of the civil rights question. Lee Huebuer, a graduate student in the School of Arts and Sciences, wrote the introduction to the report.

The Ripon Society is a Republican Party thought group founded two years ago, largely by Harvard people in Cambridge. Its basic premise is that the Republican Party is in need of ideas today, and that it must reshape its image if it is to be successful in the future.

The analysis concluded that civil rights had cost the Republican Party more votes than any other domestic issue, and called for a vigorous effort to regain the confidence of Negroes in the Republican Party. It asked a complete "reversal of the 1964 Southern Strategy." Republican candidates across the nation received only six per cent of the Negro vote last year.

The Ripon Society, itself composed of young people, directed the closing remarks of the report to the youth of the nation: "...today no man and no Party carries the torch of our generation. This is the great tragedy of American polities ...And it is the great opportunity of a new Republican Party."