University of Virginia Library

MacDONALD

go back and forth to the Wesley
Foundation to keep mimeographed
releases up to date. St. Thomas Hall
has set up a full-time office just to
handle the community canvassing;
other people are working full time
to get draft resisters and telegram
signers, seminars on political topics,
speakers for other schools, and
good public relations. All told
probably 1,000 students are working
for peace.

All this points to the University's
spirit, the idea that this
school could "close down to remain
open" and allow students to fight
against an abomination America's
pursuit of war in Indochina. My
first year this was a hawk University,
and like the rest of America it
has swung against this war since
then; but few schools have seen as
unprecedented a willingness to
work for peace on a day-by-day,
house to house and hour-by-hour
basis.

And the change from a strike to
peace campaign points to another
event the emergence of Edgar
Shannon as a true university president
and leader. This columnist
strongly attacked the President just
Friday for adroitly dodging every
issue, and, while I cannot say I
agree with all he has said or done
since, his stand against the war took
courage. It has also provided the
necessary rallying point and spiritual
leadership for many strikers.
Apologies and congratulation to the
President are in order, and I offer
them.

So no longer is Mr. Shannon the
Richmond Times-Dispatch's Great
White Hope, and no longer is he
merely one of Governor Holton's
bureaucrats. He has a soul. Unfortunately
for both himself and the
University, a Virginia public figure
is not supposed to have a heart or a
mouth unless it is to treat students
as niggers with it. The Governor
and his cronies would probably love
dearly to sack Mr. Shannon and put
some good Republican like San
Francisco's Hayakawa in his place;
already the rumblings are coming in
from such education - conscious
and liberal groups as the Farm
Bureau and Board of Visitors.

I won't be here if they sack Mr.
Shannon, for the Board does not
meet until June and would most
likely not consider the matter until
well into next year. But we
graduating students can help, both
in saving a man who has shown his
conscience and in setting the rest of
this University right again. Those of
us joining the Alumni Association,
for example, should organize within
that group and boot out the
reactionary officers. Then we can
put it back on the side of free
speech and away from through
control.

If the alumni could understand
what a University should be,
professors joining rap sessions on
the Lawn as well as in class, and
free thoughts being exchanged,
maybe their influence would be
worthwhile. But right now their
power is an insidious influence. All
right now, for peace, and against
the thought control, the University
is working hard with a spirit that
makes my four years stand out as
they would never have done without
the past two weeks. Right on.

* * * *

As stated above, this will be my
last column for The Cavalier Daily.
In the past year many people have
commented on my writings, both
favorably and unfavorably. The
important thing is that those
persons weighed the issues enough
to think through their reactions,
and from exchanging ideas we all
learn.