Education: Browder at Yale

When Earl Browder, No. 1 U. S. Communist, talked at Yale last year, only 268 undergraduates turned out to hear him. But last week Comrade Browder had what pressagents know as “a buildup.” Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth had barred him. New Haven American Legionnaires had bellowed at tolerant Yale President Charles Seymour for not barring him. All this set the stage for more fun than Yale men had had since old George Gundelfinger issued his first tract (in 1923) on “Why the Bulldog Is Losing His Grip.”

At Yale an hour before Mr. Browder was due at Strathcona Hall (capacity: 407) one afternoon last week, police had to close the doors, with nearly 500 inside, sitting, standing and hanging from the windows. By the time Mr. Browder was squeezed in through a side door, 2,500 more undergraduates and townsmen were milling outside, raising ladders to the windows, trying to jimmy the doors. Delighted Comrade Browder, mistaking a lark for an eagle, began by hailing the Bill of Rights (laughter and applause), then launched into a discourse on “America and the Imperialistic War.”

“Louder, Browder!” yelled the crowd outside. Someone led a long Yale cheer for Browder that drowned out his speech. Someone else dumped a pail of water from the roof. The crowd chanted the famed Undertaker’s Song. Soon paper bags and firecrackers began to pop. An old lady rushed up to a policeman shrieking: “Disband this group of ruffians.”

Inside, Comrade Browder was in rare form. The U. S, Government’s passport-fraud case against him, said he, is “as thin as homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death” (a quote from Abraham Lincoln). Mr. Browder promised to show during his trial that “many highly respected businessmen, jurists and statesmen” had traveled “under pseudonyms.”

As Mr. Browder warmed up to his assault on capitalism, his audience listened politely, interrupted with only an occasional “Hear! Hear!” or “Prove it!” When Comrade Browder declared that the Soviet Union was determined to maintain peace, the audience laughed loudly. But Mr. Browder got his biggest hand when he asserted that if the U. S. copied the Russian system it could by 1950 give every U. S. man, woman and child a bonus of $25,000.

“He promises everybody a quart of caviar,” translated a listener at a window to the crowd outside. “Caviar!” they cried. “We want caviar!”

As Browder emerged from the hall, he was surrounded by cheering and booing students. Enthusiasts began to throw vegetables at his car, and there was an abortive attempt to turn the car over, but cries of “Cut it out!” from cooler heads soon stopped the monkeyshines.

Cried Browder later: “A beautiful reception. The students were beautifully behaved.” The American Civil Liberties Union congratulated President Seymour. Whooped the New York Daily News: 3,000 BOOLA Boo BROWDER AT YALE. But the World-Telegram, which believes that the Browder menace is no laughing matter, hissed: “Liberalism … has its sophomore class.”