Fashionable
Allegiance
"While the best lack all conviction/
The Worst are full of passionate
intensity."
Remembering Mr. Yeats' incantation,
I have heretofore formed no
opinion of the political conventions
of my peers (Student Leaders). I
have duly considered the excesses
committed in the name of reason
and compassion, accepting as
axiomatic, transmutation of reason
to rhetoric, compassion to publicized
pomposity. Yet I wonder if
the Student Leaders have breached
the just limits to which I as a good
egalitarian democrat subscribe.
More precisely, I disagree with the
propriety of attack being levied
against C. Stuart Wheatley, Jr.; an
inhabitant of that delightful town
of Danville, Virginia.
Do Student Leaders have the
expertise to explore the character
of the Board of Visitors? Shall in
the future all appointments to that
Board be subject to approval by ad
hoc groups of Student Leaders?
Does a statement or political
opinion made years ago reflect the
basic ability or integrity with which
a man discharges his responsibility
as a member of the Board of
Visitors? Have the Student Leaders
heard of the late Senator Joseph
McCarthy? Do they remember his
attempts in the early 1950's to
purge from American life, highly
placed government officials on the
basis of political opinions they held
in the depression era? Perhaps it is
that, although time and opinions
change, politicians remain comparable
to litmus paper, reflecting
the most fashionable opinion of
their time. As for Mr. Wheatley,
what can one expect from a
politician? Apparently about what
one receives from our Student
Leaders — allegiance to fashion.
Sam Robinson
Medicine 1
Student Council Representative.
Any consideration of
Mr. Wheatley's status was
conspicuously absent from all
statements made by the "Student
Leaders." It was the SSOC-SDS
that demanded his resignation—ed.
