generally, self-satisfied place. Neverthe- less, this incident, for the 6 days be- War on Campus: What Happened When Dow Recruited at Harvard Cambridge. Wednesday, October, twenty-fifth began quietly, but when it was over Harvard University had been plunged into a rare internal crisis. Inside the Mallinckrodt Chemistry Laboratory more than 200 students had crowded into a narrow corridor to prevent Frederick Leavitt, a recruiter from the Dow Chemical Company, the much-assailed manufacturer of napalm, from leaving Room M-102. Thesit-in had stretched through the afternoon with no signs of effectively by speeches from some stu- dents and junior faculty members, had hadits effect. Leavitt:was whisked away, and almost the entire college community began a week of collective debate. In the following days the specter of a Berkeley-style crisis loomed before formally christened the “war room,” an “assortment of university deans, adminis- trators, and faculty members discussed what they could do. Their conclusion: nothing. Atall costs, the deans wanted to avoid involving the police, who might only inflame the situation. Police intervention would also constitute an abridgment of the university’s autonomy; for the approved community’s confident the demonstrators. fiber. The protest was a difficult one for the university to handle, for, though some students and faculty members thought they clearly saw the path to Truth, a large part of the community had ambivalent feelings about the entire affair. That ambivalence grew with time. This incertitude stemmed, like the demonstration itself, from Vietnam. vasive among students, but the faculty, too, is increasingly rejecting the war. had to be taken quickly, somefelt. But Though disenchantment is not universal, the antiwar mood is so strong that those who feel otherwise, including a number of prominent faculty mem- tear down the campus. Stern action this instance at least, simply wrong. “Harvard is still more of a community Down the hallway, in what was in- shredded that for selves, and the students threatened to representative of Dow would ever recruit again at Harvard. Leavitt, a quiet, patient man who runs one of Dow’s re- search laboratories, sat calmly inside the faculty meeting Over the last 2% years the college has turned overwhelmingly against the war. trators and faculty members. Harvard’s time had finally come, they told them- that stern action, and the collapse of room and prepared to stay the night. ing punishments many frightened and anxious adminis- ending; the students wanted Leavitt’s pledge that neither he nor any other tween the event itself and the overflow- the university, never came. The parallel with Berkeley was, in The antipathy is strongest and most per- bers, generally stay silent. But Harvard men also feel especially than Berkeley ever was,” commented one faculty member who has taught at protective of civil liberties, and the sit-in destroy the university, but it did demonstrate the profound psychological and political impact the war has had on the faculty members and students the wrong way. A dilemma was posed for both schools. The Dow protest did not college. Harvard is a self-composed and, —the involuntary detainment of one man for 7 hours—clearly rubbed many many. Was civil disobedience justified by outrage over the war? If not justi- years Harvard has sought, quite success- fully, to remain master of its own campus. An informal understanding has existed that has kept police off the campus and let the college handle many cases of petty student crime. To call the police was to admit that Harvard could not run its own shop; and yet that might be necessary. It was obvious to Fred L. Glimp, who had been dean of the college for less than 4 months, that the sit-in could not be allowed to con- tinue indefinitely; Leavitt’s patience had limits. Glimp contemplated letting the demonstration run into the evening: he hoped that somehow it would end, or shrink, allowing the police to extricate Leavitt, with a minimum of force, late at night or early in the morning. Glimp nevercalled the police. Shortly after 6 p.m. the students, jammed into the hallway with cookie cartons, apple cores, and coke bottles, voted to leave. A last appeal by Glimp, buttressed R DECFEMRFR 1947 Dow Demonstration: Students blocking a passageway at Harvard in, pretest. against recruiting by Dow Chemical Co. aann