Harris's defense, organizing protest meetings which drew hundreds of students and, on April 6, 1932, the first collegiate student strike of the decade. Despite opposition from the faculty, athletes and the local fraternities, enough pressure was kept on the Columbia administration to persuade it to re-instate Harris on April 20. The NSL participated in a number of free speech fights, protests against student fee hikes and anti-war activity until its merger with the Student League for Industrial Democracy to form the American Student Union in December 1935. One of its most dramatic activities was organizing the National Student Strike Against War on April 13, 1934 and 1935, commemorating American entry into the First World War. The first strike, coordinated with the SLID, drew 25,000 students nationwide, 15,000 of whom were in New York City. The second demonstration, however, in April 1935, drew 175,000 students, 160,000 of whom outside of New York, and was co-sponsored by the National Student Federation of America, the National Council of Methodist Youth, YMCA, YWCA, the Interseminary Movement, and the youth section of the American League Against War and Fascism, among others. An important aspect of the two annual strikes was an Americanized version of the Oxford Pledge, in which students pledged "We will not support the government of the United States in any war it may conduct." This became a point of tension in the period of negotiation on the merger with SLID, because the NSL, following the Comintern line after the Seventh World Congress in summer 1935, came out in favor of a Popular front against fascism and Collective security which seemed at odds with the isolationist and pacifist spirit of the pledge. Merger With the NSL and the SLID working together so often, sentiment in favor of amalgamation began to form within both groups. The NSL took the first steps toward unity by inviting the SLID to the Student Congress Against War in Chicago in December 1932. Though organized on the basis of the Communist-led World Congress Against War that had been held that August in Amsterdam, the NSL succeeded in toning down the Third Period anti-socialist rhetoric, and succeeded in getting the SLID behind the Congress, as well as many pacifist organizations. The NSL's conference later that month officially proposed a merger. Despite being rebuffed, the NSL passed another pro-amalgamation resolution the next year. The SLID was initially suspicious of the NSL's