Harvard Peace Groups Continue Efforts To End War by Canvassing, Petitioning

Many Harvard groups continued strike-oriented political activities yesterday-circulating petitions, canvassing, and planning activities aimed at upcoming primaries and elections.

Peace Action Strike-a student-Faculty group organized by Everett Mendelschn. professor of the History of Science-will send a busload of students to Philadelphia this afternoon to work for Norvall Reese. a peace candidate seeking the Democratic nomination to oppose Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott ??R-Pa. in the fall.

The group is also studying the backgrounds of congressmen and senators in order to provide fact sheets for students returning home to give them information on influencing their congressmen.

The Winthrop Work Center-a group operating out of the Winthrop Tonkens Room, which is loosely affiliated with Peace Action-has been conducting canvassing and petition drives in suburban towns since last week.

The Trek

About 50 students a day have trekked to Arlington, ringing door bells and ask residents to sign petitions supporting the McGovern-Hatfield amendment to cut off funds for the war. The canvassers are also seeking signat?? for a petition supporting a bill proposed in the Masachusetts legislature which would place the Indochina war issue on a referendum.

The Winthrop group has also set up booths in shopping centers in Cambridge and other suburbs where shoppers may sign anti-war telegrams. letters, and postcards to President Nixon and Massachusetts congressmen.

Students manning the booths raised more than $2000 to help defray the cost of an half-hour political message presented by McGovern and other anti-war senators last night.

The National Student Referendum Committee, a group operating out of Wigglesworth, conducted a referendum in dining halls and the Yard today totest student support for the McGovern Hatfield amendment.

Kenneth X. O'Brien '73, chairman of the group, said yesterday that the group has contacts in 23 states and is building toward a national student referendum on the bill to be completed in the next two weeks.

"We're not aiming at a political bias in this," O'Brien said. "We're having the Harvard votes counted by a professor from the Divinity School so no one can say there was any funny business."

The Harvard Student Mobilization Committee, also operating from Winthrop House and associated with the Work Center, is circulating a petition in Cambridge and nearby areas which would bypass the legislature and place the war referendum on the ballot by voter initiative.

The petition-called "Referendum '70" -needs about, 250,000 signatures to be placed on the ballot, and has already collected nearly 100,000 statewide.

SDS and the Strike Steering Committee have circulated a petition asking for the abolition of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities. Spokesmen said yesterday that more than 1100 people have signed the petition, demanding that all CRR punishments be rescinded and all charges now pending before the body be dropped.