University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Word From The Dead: 'Save Lambeth!'

It has come to my attention
that our unique and lovely
Lambeth Field stadium is most
likely to be razed to the ground,
and (can this be true?) a high-rise
apartment house for students
constructed in its place. This is an
outrage! I can vividly picture the
same sadistic architect responsible
for the brick monstrosity on
Jefferson Park Ave. known as the
"new medical building" fiendishly
designing yet another eyesore to
replace one of the last vestiges of
classic beauty apparent on the
grounds.

While I fully realize the need for
more student housing, I feel sure
that if the kingpins here at the U.
put on their thinking caps, they
could certainly come up with
another suitable site for the
building. If I might make a
suggestion (perhaps unfeasible and
certainly provocative), I would say
that the cemetery across the street
from Gilmer Hall would be a far
better location. Although the
descendants of these bygone
builders of the University might
oppose any such attempt, I believe
that if the actual inhabitants of the
cemetery could cast their vote, they
would overwhelmingly decide to
sacrifice their own resting places in
order that the University they so
dearly loved could grow and
flourish without obliterating all of
its beauty and tradition.

The sudden appearance of
tennis courts in the Dell over the
summer has wiped out one of the
few remaining patches of green.
The proposed high-rise will
eliminate all of Lambeth Field from
Route 29 to (and probably
including) the stadium itself. What
would Mr. Jefferson say if there
were no more grassy expanses on
which one could exercise or frolic?
Beware, Cavaliers! If this inexorable
encroachment of the concrete
jungle continues, we might wake up
one morning and find that the
parking problem has been solved by
paving the Lawn and creating a
giant parking lot in its place.

Stop The Slaughter

I would very much appreciate
your publishing this brief letter so
that the University community
might have an opportunity to help
put an end to the despicable
slaughter of our ocean mammals by
commercial fisherman. Senator
Fred Harris of Oklahoma, and five
colleagues, have proposed a bill
which protects ocean mammals
including all seal, whale, walrus,
manatee, sea otter, sea lion, polar
bear, porpoise, and dolphin.

This bill would prohibit the
importation and sale of the skins of
these gentle mammals. Only
Eskimos would be permitted to
take ocean mammals (except polar
bear) for their own use but not for
sale. In addition, the bill would
establish the National Seal Rookery
Preserve and Bird Sanctuary in the
Pribilor Islands where baby seals
could live, safe from the barbarians'
skinning blades.

This is an important bill that
could very well die in committee
while seals and polar bears are
dying on the beaches. Your
expressed interest will help get the
bill heard in the committee and
reported out to Congress. Please
write and request that the bill be
reported out. Ask for prompt
hearings. Request a copy of the bill
if you like. Write: SENATE
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
WARREN MAGNUSON
CHAIRMAN, SENATE OFFICE
BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
20510. The bill number is S1315.

Weekly Disrespectful

In the last few months the
Virginia Weekly has shown an
ever-increasing disrespect for the
law and the courts of the
Commonwealth of Virginia. It
began by publishing an illegal
advertisement, broke the same law
again after some of their staff were
arrested for the first breach,
distributed the issue in which the
second breach of the statute
appeared at the courtroom door
during the trial of their editors for
the first breach, and, this fall,
committed yet a third breach.
Before this, of course, they had
been expelled from the courtrooms
of the locality on several occasions.

Now, it is my conviction that
the law and the courts are one of
the major barriers set between
mankind and both savagery and
tyranny; I consider that to lessen
respect for the law by providing a
bad example of disrespect is to
invite lasting social damage.
Inasmuch as I consider myself a
social being with responsibilities to
my fellows and to the society in
which I live, I cannot stand by and
let such behavior as the recent
conduct of the Virginia Weekly pass
undealt with; inasmuch as I can do
something about it, my conscience
requires that I take action.

The fact that the statute in
question has to do with the
outlawing of abortion
advertisements does not influence
me in this matter (although in point
of fact I see no justification for it
except to save the mother's life); all
of the law is equally to be obeyed
and enforced.

For this reason, I am submitting
a petition to the Board of Visitors
at their meeting on September 29.