Socialists Enter City Council Race

Five members of the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) announced their candidacy for the Cambridge City Council last night at the weekly session of the Cambridge Forum at the First Parish Church.

The five socialists-Terry W. Bell, William Scheer, Jeanne B. Lafferty, Toba L. Singer, and Sarah J. Ullman-last night called for community control of the police, free day-care centers, abortion on demand, and the immediate implementation of the new rent control law.

Steve Nelson, who ran for the Council in 1969, Henry Owens, a 27-year-old black lawyer, and Leonard T. Russell, general manager of the Russell Trucking Corporation in Cambridge also announced their candidacies in the forum last night.

The three women socialist candidates emphasized that Women's Liberation would be the main issue in their campaigns.

Singer, who ran for Attorney General of Massachusetts in 1970, saidthat "abortion laws are responsible for the deaths of 7000 women each year. The absence of free day-care centers keeps women imprisoned in the home. What we are demanding is control over our own lives."

Scheer and Bell attacked the capitalist system for "breeding racism and poverty." Bell, a machine operator and Vietnam war veteran, stated, "The reason we don't have low-cost housing in Cambridge is because it's not profitable. Capitalists only invest in things that are profitable, like the war."

The SWP, a Marxist organization with a national membership of 10,000, ran only one candidate for City Council in the 1969 elections. City Council elections are held every two years and candidates are elected by proportional representation.