The Cavalier daily :: Monday, October 12, 1970 :: University of Virginia Library

If one had to name an historical
predecessor of the Rev. Carl
McIntire. It would have to be the
Rev. Charles Coughlin who was sort
of a clerical version of Huey Long
back in the 1930's. Rev. Coughlin
had a greater following than does
Mr. McIntyre at the moment, but
fortunately his movement ran out
of gas before it could do much
harm.

If history does repeat itself, the
same will happen to Rev. McIntyre.

With his two rather unsuccessful
marches on Washington, Mr.
McIntyre moved into the national
spotlight. But in his home state of
New Jersey he has been a
controversial figure for years. If it
wasn't for Spiro Agnew, Mr.
McIntyre would have gained
national attention, or more of it,
before now.

Retreat to Basics

Mr. McIntyre is a fundamentalist
Presbyterian minister. He has a
church in Collingswood, N.J. and a
college in Cape May, N.J. He also
has a newspaper and until recently
controlled a radio station in Media,
Pa. Mr. McIntyre has a secure
power base, and is not just a
refugee from the Joe Pyne show.

For years the preacher broadcast
on a small radio station in
Pennsylvania. Recently the FCC
failed to renew the station's license,
charging it did not attempt to
present a "fair view" of topics, and
didn't allow opposing spokesmen to
challenge the reverend. Of course
he claims repression, and he is
probably right.

In his broadcasts Mr. McIntyre
regularly called upon the solid
citizens to fight communism, sex
education, and all the usual
menaces to Christian living. This
didn't upset anyone, but then he
started to get too political. One of
his more famous rallying cries when
Richard Hughes was governor of
New Jersey was "the Catholics are
running the state."

Sloppy Slur

Later he was booted out of the
American Council of Christian
Churches because he said they were
soft on communism.

Other things didn't go well for
Mr. McIntyre. In the summer of
1969 he lead a march through
Trenton, the state capital. He
promised his followers that there
would be 100,000 marchers led by
George Wallace and Strom
Thurmond with Bibles in their
hands. Unfortunately only several
thousand of the faithful showed,
minus George and Strom. —The
Jersey press, which is not
particularly liberal, along with the
Philadelphia press, roasted the
preacher and he went back to
Collingswood claiming sabotage by
the communists.

The march was precipitated by
the state's move to take his college's
accreditation away.

The college he runs is called
Shelton College and it operates in
several old hotel buildings that were
the cat's meow when everyone was
singing "On the Way to Cape May."
Now Cape May is Jersey's answer to
Fire Island and Mr. McIntyre
shelters and indoctrinates a few
hundred Christian warriors in the
oceanfront college.

The entering student at Shelton
is greeted with a welcoming
statement which reads: "Training
Christian warriors is more than our
motto, it is the reason Shelton
College exists. The desire of this
institution is to equip you as a good
soldier of Jesus Christ for the
battles ahead."

Students are requires to attend
morning and evening church
services on Sunday. Also there is
compulsory chapel four times a
week. Mini skirts and long hair on
men are taboo.

In the realm of the carnal, the
rules are tougher. For example, no
freshman is allowed to date during
the week (except at chapel). Dates
out of the 12 mile limit must be by
permission of the Dean. Any date
that is not from Shelton must be
approved by the Dean. Couples
dating off campus after 6 p.m. must
be accompanied by a chaperone or
another couple.

Marriage Taboo

And as for marriage, it is
forbidden during the school year.
Students under 21 must have
permission from the Dean: No one
who is a freshman or sophomore
may marry.

I quote, "Because Shelton
College is a Christian institution
and maintains definite scriptural
standards, all students, whether
living in dormitories or not, are
required to abstain from worldly
practices (such as the use of
tobacco or liquor, participation in
gambling games or dancing, and
attendance at commercialized
motion pictures)..."

As expected, Sunday is the
Lord's Day. Students are
discouraged from studying on
Sunday and are not allowed to play
musical instruments unless they
play "sacred" music. The watching
of television on Sunday is also
forbidden.

Although the students are
allowed to leave the area within the
12 mile limit during the day, they
have to be in their rooms by
midnight on Friday, 11 p.m. on
Saturday, and 10:30 all other days.
If they are late they get late
minutes, just like at some of the
girls' schools we know.

Monkey Business

Now with such fine rules how
could the state refuse to accredit
such a Christian institution? The
answer is simple. Shelton is mainly
a teachers' school, and a lot of
people in the state got worried
about what their kids might learn
from these teachers. For example, a
teacher at Glassboro State (of
LBJ-Kosygin fame) claimed that a
student teacher who was from
Shelton refused to teach her
biology class about Darwin and
evolution. Shades of William
Jennings Bryan.

Also, it was discovered that Mr.
McIntyre's second-in-command at
Shelton had never graduated from
college, and so his teaching
credentials were dubious at best.

A question that may be asked is
"where does he find people to go to
Shelton?" It does seem logical that
most 18 year-olds would find
Shelton's Christian atmosphere
about as attractive as Dachau. But,
he gets them there, and he gets
most of them from Collingswood,
N.J., where they are members of his
congregation. Enough said about
Collingswood.

Mr. McIntyre is dangerous
because he believes he is right. He is
so right that he indoctrinates and
distorts the minds of several
hundred young people every year.
If he had lived in a different age he
would have been on the first boat
to Jerusalem to fight the Infidels, or
he would have joined the Spanish
Inquisition. His theme song is
"Onward Christian Soldiers."

For this fundamentalist
Christian warrior there is no room
for compromise. Christians are right
and everyone else is wrong.
Christians have to make everyone
think as they do. They have to do
battle against the forces of evil.

It is not good enough to slip out
of Vietnam at the first chance and
let the North Vietnamese win,
which they will do in any event. We
have to save the people from
Godless communism. And
remember, anyone in Vietnam who
owns anything is Catholic, not
Buddhist. Mr. McIntyre can have no
other concept than "total victory."

The students at Shelton like
their fearless leader and they think
he is being persecuted. I asked a
Shelton student how he could stand
it at Shelton and he said, "Well,
we're pretty liberal compared to
Bob Jones."