Amid the Rah-Rah: Reality

People who think U.S. college kids are apathetic might change their minds after watching that widespread quadrennial campus phenomenon--the mock political convention.

Biggest and boomingest of them was held in the Washington and Lee University gymnasium in Lexington, Va., last week. The 1,256 just-pretend Republican delegates were in dead earnest. Months ago they had polled real-life G.O.P. state leaders, learned how they might vote at the real Republican convention in July. Now the kids were committed to vote as nearly like the actual delegation as possible--so much so that many mock delegations got a stream of telephoned instructions from real politicians throughout the convention. Beside that, tough-minded and thoroughly grown-up G.O.P. professionals backing Rockefeller, Goldwater and Scranton were in town pushing their candidates. They brought money for convention expenses: $800 from Rocky's camp, $400 from Goldwater, $100 each from the war chests of Scranton, Nixon and Lodge.

The keynote speaker was no mock orator either. Former Minnesota Congressman Walter Judd, who performed the same function at the 1960 Republican Convention in Chicago, told the collegians: "We must get a Republican elected who understands the world situation and not one who will crawl to get a concession. You've got five months to save the U.S. and save the world. Work hard!"*

In the voting, the Washington and Lee delegates nominated Barry Goldwater on the second ballot, named Pennsylvania's Governor Scranton his running mate. Through it all, Barry stayed near a phone in Washington, was plugged into the gymnasium public-address system minutes after he won and said solemnly, "I accept with great humility. I hope and pray it is a good omen for July and November."

Among dozens of other mock Republican conventions held on U.S. college campuses this spring:

> At Ohio's Oberlin College, which boasts the oldest campus convention in the U.S. (the first was in 1860), delegates picked Scranton on the fourth ballot, chose Kentucky Senator Thruston Morton for Vice President.

> At Vanderbilt, delegates from 34 colleges showed up, orated for six hours and six ballots before they picked Nixon for President, were so exhausted they then took less than 20 minutes to name Morton as his running mate.

> At California's Claremont Colleges, spring-fevered delegates came within a whisker of nominating Bishop Homer Aubrey Tomlinson of the Theocratic Party as the Republican candidate, cooled off by the second ballot and picked Scranton, with Oregon's Governor Mark Hatfield for Vice President.

> At Wellesley, where delegates from 50 colleges assembled, campus cops shut off the lights in the auditorium just as vociferous Goldwater backers were steamrolling toward victory. Crafty Rockefeller supporters had spread the rumor to police that a riot was in the works, and the convention broke up in the dark without naming a candidate.

> At Morgan State College, a Negro school in Maryland, Scranton got 720 votes, Rockefeller 323 and Goldwater, a nonadvocate of the civil rights bill, a meager 99.

> At Brooklyn College, delegates from 25 colleges yelled, pushed and got in a convention-floor fist fight before they picked Goldwater and Morton.

> At City College's Baruch School of Business Administration in New York, delegates argued about whether Martin Luther King, 35, is old enough to be nominated for President (he is), finally picked Scranton, with New York Senator Jacob Javits as Vice President.

> At Ohio University, delegates rode motorcycles through the gymnasium, watched coeds do a striptease, then picked Henry Cabot Lodge and Michigan's Governor George Romney.

* In 1956, the Washington and Lee keynoter was former Vice President Alben W. Barkley, who uttered his last sentence--"I would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than sit in the seats of the mighty''--and fell dead at the podium.

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