The North: Oxford & Cambridge

The auditorium of Rindge Technical High School in Cambridge, Mass., is roomy (1,500 seats), cheap to rent ($75 a night) and, all in all, a fine spot for the “thoughtprovoking and controversial speakers” that the students of the Harvard Law School Forum promise to bring before the public. But the mayor of Cambridge, Edward A. Crane (Harvard ’35), who is also chairman of the school committee, last week provided a controversy of his own. Crane’s school board refused to rent the auditorium for a Forum speech by Mississippi’s Governor Ross Barnett. “If they want to transfer their bloodshed and death from Oxford to Cambridge,” cried Crane, “let them do it on Harvard property.”

The mayor suggested that Barnett “be accommodated just as Premier Fidel Castro” was accommodated when the school committee turned him down as a Forum speaker four years ago. Castro ended up in Harvard Stadium, which is pretty nippy in February. “My idea is not to give the fellow the freeze,” said Crane, “but I believe that student riots over a controversial character should be put out in a large field so nobody gets hurt.”

Harvard Stadium was available. But the Law Forum decided instead to hire Harvard’s Sanders Theater, where, however cool things get, everybody can still stay warm.