University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

'Greedy' Defoliation At Home

In this time of growing interest
in ecology and conversation, it is,
indeed, amazing that the lumber
industry may soon be given license
to raid our national forests. This
license may be granted by Congress
in the form of the National Timber
Supply Act (H.R. 12025 and S.
1832) - misleadingly relabeled the
"National Forest Conservation and
Management Act."

Proponents of this bill, taking
advantage of the existence of a
housing shortage, are claiming a
timber "shortage" threatens the
country. They claim that national
forests, currently protected by the
Multiple-Use and Sustained Yield
Act of 1964, will provide the
solution. First, it is hard to believe
that a lumber shortage really exists
when four billion board feet were
exported in 1969 and lumber
company profits are at record-breaking
levels. Second, this bill has
been rightly called "the antithesis
of conservation" and threatens to
"visit environmental disaster on
much of our national forests."

This bill must not be allowed to
pass. If you are tired of a handful
of greedy people being allowed to
contribute to the destruction of our
natural environment, you should let
your Congressman know immediately.
Write or telegram your Congressman
now and urge him to vote
against this unnecessary raid on our
national forests. Act today -
tomorrow will be too late.

Thank you. It's about time
someone recognized lawn strollers
for the shriek of wise words is too
seldom heard.

As every good Wahoo surely
knows, we live in a community of
civilized gentlemen and scholars,
many of whom enjoy attending
Cavalier basketball games and supporting
the team. However, the
University unfortunately houses an
embarrassing minority of bush-league
fans whose most creative
display of misdirected enthusiasm is
tossing crunched Coke cups on the
court; undoubtedly a cultural refinement
of the rock throwing at
South American soccer games. The
impression of the University this
must leave on prospective athletes
visiting the games may partially
explain our high standing in the
conference. After all, who would
want to play ball at a school where
one's physical well-being is constantly
endangered by the threat of
getting clobbered by an errant ice
cube. And, in the case of Wednesday
night's contest, a well deserved
technical foul brought on by the
rubble raisers could have cost us all
one of our rarest treasures in the
sport: an ACC victory.

Apparently the liberal dander is,
indeed, "up" in the wake of Dean
Woody's little sojourn to Richmond.
Mr. Daly's letter of February
10th clearly exposes the motivation
of Dean Woody's bigoted (oh, that
word again) brigade. It is beyond
my power of cognizance to understand
how any individual in this age
of enlightenment can expound
"racism, 19th century methods,
and male supremacy."

Although unacquainted with the
Dean, I feel sure that his sole
intention was to point out that the
Student Council does by no means
represent all University students.
By going to Richmond he was, in
fact, only protecting the rights of
an "apparent" minority group -
the conservatives.

As to the application of the
word dishonorable in the aforesaid
letter, perhaps Mr. Daly sees something
inherently disgraceful or
shameful in a concerned faculty
member acting in the interests of a
large segment of the student body.
I am, however, unable to acquiesce.

It is evidence of poor sportsmanship
when liberals criticize the
means used by Dean Woody. On
the contrary they should be pleased
and flattered that a member of an
older generation has adopted the
very tactics practiced by current
leftest groups. It is one thing to
prescribe a medicine and entirely
another thing to take it.

Three cheers for Dean Woody.

In response to Mr. Donald
Lovett's letter I would first like to
say that I am not "intent on
destroying" anyone, least of all
Dean Woody. If my letter, written
in a state of high indignation, was
so interpreted, I am deeply sorry.

However, Mr. Lovett, it is you,
not I who are lacking in logic, and
as for truth, your recounting of the
story simply put flesh on the
skeletal accounts I drew from The
Cavalier Daily.

Your whole letter was a reinforcement
of my position. Instead
of acting through the proper
channels as the administration so
parsimoniously preaches, you
aided by Mr. Woody (a member of
that administration as a Dean)
circumvented the proper channels. I
did not claim that Mr. Woody
instructed you in what to say (that
charge reflects a poor reading of my
letter), I simply said that Mr.
Woody arranged the meeting in
near secrecy, which is true.

You state that Dean Woody was
familiar with your political convictions.
This again reinforced my
position. He was obviously aware of
the views you would carry to
Richmond. Mr. Blackford, assistant
to the governor, is quoted in The
Cavalier Daily of Feb. 4 as saying
Mr. Woody indicated you would be
"representing conservative thinking,'
whatever that's supposed to
mean." Be honest, would Mr.
Woody have arranged such a meeting
for Tom Gardner and Thurm
Wenzel? Let's be realistic, in all
likelihood they would have been
instructed to go through "proper
channels." Why should he go to bat
for you? Last year when Ron
Hickman was president of the
Student Council I took my complaints
about representation I disliked
to the council, the proper
channel. I got no response from the
conservative council president but I
did not hunt up a "liberal"
administrator to circumvent the
Council.

You stated your primary concern
at that time were your exams,
that is as it should have been. It is
regretful that you could not take
the hour required to make a phone
call to Richmond (for future
reference the governor's office is
770-2211). Instead, you asked
Dean Woody to arrange the meeting.
I hope that didn't take up too
much time.

Finally, Mr. Woody said in The
Cavalier Daily that he did not know
the names of the members of the
delegation. If this is true are we
then to presume that he did not
know your name Mr. Lovett? How
then did he know your political
convictions? No semantics games
please, honor is not derived from a
play on words but from intent.

Thank you Mr. Lovett, once
again for your strong reinforcement
of my position. I could not have
found a better source. It is now
clear that you and Mr. Woody did
not go through the proper channels
and that you attempted to arrange
an unpublicized meeting.

Mr. Donald Lovett's letter of
February 13 attacks Mr. Daly for
resorting "to the all too familiar
tactic around this 'enlightened'
academic village of malicious 'name
calling.' "This is somewhat amusing
after we peruse the first
paragraph which says that Mr.
Daly's undertaking lacks only two
things, "truth and logic."

There are other contradictions
to be found in Mr. Lovett's defense
of Dean Woody. Mr. Lovett notes
that Dean Woody "didn't even
know what we were going to
say...." He goes on to say that Dean
Woody "based his prediction of
what our objectives were on his
personal knowledge of my political
convictions." The question is
whether or not Dean Woody had
some idea of what Mr. Lovett
would say. The answer, using Mr.
Lovett's own words, is that he did.

Mr. Lovett claims that "to say
that we carried Mr. Woody's ideas
to the capital could not be further
from the truth." But if Mr. Lovett's
views and Dean Woody's views are
one and the same (or at least lean
generally toward the same spectrum
of thought), then it does not really
matter whether Mr. Lovett was
carrying his own views to the
capital or not.

What Mr. Daly is objecting to in
a real way, is Dean Woody's
attempt to undercut a liberal
student council. By his action in
arranging the meeting, Dean Woody
is an accomplice. Would Dean
Woody have arranged a meeting
with the Governor for students
whose views differed radically from
his? I think not, and that is what
Mr. Daly is rightly objecting to.

—Ed

On this occasion of the birthday
of our greatest President, Abraham
Lincoln, I would like to volunteer
my services to my country. I realize
that you have been having difficulty
finding a replacement for the
beloved director of our Selective
Service System, General Louis B.
Hershey, and I would like you to
consider me seriously for this
position. I am a white conservative
Southerner, 27 years of age, who is
a registered Democrat (voted for
Johnson in 1964 and Humphrey in
1968). I stand up firmly for and am
in sympathy with your protegee, the
Honorable Spiro Agnew. (I had a
God Bless Spiro Agnew sticker on
my Valiant back-fender until some
violent anti-war pacifist ripped it
off.) Let me discuss some of my
other qualifications. I am a member
of the turned on, tuned in, now
generation. I ride motorcycles, love
to dance to hard rock (In-a-Gadda-De-Vita
is my favorite rock tune)
and belong to a swinging sensitivity
group. I am also an expert on
computers and computer programming
which I can use to revise our
present draft system in the following
way. By using a random number
generator on a computer, we can
change the draft lottery numbers
completely every day. In this way,
all the SDS protesters who hate the
lottery will be completely confused
and those anxious souls who now
have low numbers will lose their
anxiety because no one will know
what the hell is going on. In any
event, life for the draftables will
become a little more exciting. I
would also like to mention that I
have a graduate degree in Astronomy
and by using my knowledge
of Astrology to predict forthcoming
foreign crises, we could
devise our national foreign policy in
a more satisfactory fashion than is
currently being done by Foggy
Bottom.

I will be expecting to hear from
you in a few days. Transportation
by either ram-jet helicopter or
Lincoln Continental will be satisfactory.
Thank you.

I was both surprised and disappointed
by the attendance at the
Western High School production of
"In White America." I was surprised
that the University of Virginia,
which is attempting to prove
how liberal it is becoming, could
not even fill Cabell Hall Auditorium
for a play that was supposed to be a
highlight of Black Culture Week.
When only a few hundred people
out of the thousands at the
University manage to attend such
an event, one begins to wonder if
the University is really trying to be
liberal or if it's all just talk. Still, I
suppose we should be glad that we
had the opportunity to have Black
Culture Week at all.

Those who did manage to attend
the play were well rewarded. If one
was to judge from the applause
(half of the audience gave them a
standing ovation), the audience was
well pleased. Whereas I liked the
play and found it moving, I could
not help but feel sobered by the
problems it presented. It is disappointing
that more people could
not find the time to attend an event
that deserved so much more attention.