Youthful Volunteers

Are college students really serious about working for peace candidates in the November elections? No one can say for sure, but on early form there is a good chance that they will have considerable impact, at least in numbers. Through the American Council on Education, Vanderbilt Chancellor Alexander Heard, President Nixon's special adviser on campus unrest, commissioned a Louis Harris poll on student political intentions. It found 65% of college students convinced that working to elect better public officials is the most effective way to do something about solving the nation's problems. Nearly the same number, 63%, reject violence as a last resort to change the system.

Harris interviewers talked to 820 students, a cross-section from 50 colleges. Of that group, an overwhelming 89% believe that public pressure can gradually alter government policies. Astonishingly, 39% said they personally planned to work for peace candidates in the congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns this fall. Even if only a tenth of that number actually turn out, Harris calculates, there will be 200,000 students out on the hustings around the U.S. "The experiment could well change American politics beyond recognition," Harris says. "The students could virtually swamp the political process." Or, he adds, they could stir up an enormous anti-student reaction on the part of their elders.

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