GLAZER RESPONDS

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Your report on the membership appeal for the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, which I signed, totally misrepresents the appeal. The appeal supports "an ever-expanding opportunity for individuals without regard to face, class, sex or ethnic origin; an ever fairer distribution of the fruits of the country's vast wealth and productivity; a sustained effort, through compensatory action, to give those who have by birth and back ground beef disadvantaged a full opportunity to compete as equals in American life a sober but spirited assumption of America's share of responsibility for the establishment of a more secure international community; a knowledge that without democratic order there can be no justice and without justice there can be no democratic order; a belief that democracy works and that it works because American voters are wisely and prudently aware of their own self-interest." To your reporter, this becomes. "The membership appeal opposes deep cuts in the defense budget, quota systems for hiring..." There is nothing in the appeal opposing "deep cuts in the defense budget," which I support, at the reporter could have found out by reading my article supporting McGovern in the September Commentary, or by making she when he called me. I am aware that other singers of the appeal do not share this position. But it is perfectly clear the main point of the appeal is not to "oppose deep cuts in the defense budget" or "quota systems," as your correspondent flatly reports. As the statement clearly asserts, and as I told your reporter, its main purpose is to appeal to Democrats who rejected McGovern, in particular the labor unions and the working classes. I also told him that I had supported McGovern. Neither of these items did he find newsworthy, as against his imaginative construction of what he believed the statement said. Nathan Glazer   Professor of Education and social structure