Reed Club to Remain Alive

The Summer School on August 15 denied the Marxist John Reed Club permission to meet in Phillips Brooks House, but this represents no change in University policy, Associate Dean Watson said Wednesday.

Early in August the left-wing group applied for use of a College hall to hold a meeting at which an outside speaker would, lecture and to which admission would be charged. They were denied this on order of Summer School Director William Yandell Elliott, because the meeting was scheduled for the same night at an official Summer School poetry conference.

Then, acting for the club, Mrs. William H. Riecken, Radcliffe '46, wife of a social sciences section man, applied for use of Phillips Brooke House. Charles H. Duhig '29, former secretary of P.B.H., checked on the group and found that there were no members of the John Reed Club at the Summer School. So once again the J.R.C. was on the outside looking in, this time because outsiders cannot hold meetings in College buildings.

At the time the CRIMSON was unable to contact any member of the John Reed Club, but Mrs. Riecken called the action "Sudden, brutal, and arbitrary."

Dean Watson explained that the action was not one of banning the John Reed Club, and that even if it had been, the Summer School is entirely separate from the College's regular administration. He added that although the College's attitude toward the J.R.C. is the same as for any other recognized club, the Marxist group may have trouble this winter meeting the 20-man minimum membership required for clubs.