University of Virginia Library

After Elections, Some Questions

Seldom has the psychology of College
elections presented occasion for such high
comedy: like the full-tilt belly laughs we
heard the other night when Liquifactionist
Mike Capobianco emerged from student
government's Election Central and declared
himself the winner and next chairman of the
Honor Committee. Boasting the "mandate of
his 15 percent of the 1524 votes cast (42
percent of potential College voters), and
somewhat upstaged by the glee of his
math-radical advisors, Mr. Capobianco may
not have laughed last.

Nor best. Tom Bagby, of course, was the
winner. It was a long ballot, a short campaign,
which might have been devoid entirely of
issues had it not been for the now-famous
Coca-Cola Case, and finally, it was all carried
out with the inevitable premise that the
Honor System is either dying or dead. The
election took place, essentially unnoticed by
even a half of the College, and was attended
by all the crass ritual and perennial boredom
which befits a drudge of history, that captive
archetype which is becoming the Honor
System. And no one cares.

Should we? Perhaps, but here is not the
place, not this time. Nor is it particularly vital
to point out that four "key" ballot boxes
were left off — an "efficiency cut" — during
last week's voting, a factor but not an
explanation for the small turnout. As for Mr.
Capobianco's 15 percent, the laughter grew as
that figure paled beside the largest vote of all
— the non-vote — which itself amounts to a
counter mandate.

There was no way, obviously, to know
how many of the people who voted for Mr.
Capobianco were fully serious. (Is anyone
fully serious about this, or are we being
naive?) but the point seemed to be the others
— the 58 percent, who decided not to bother
to vote. This is not really to criticize them:
too many are our friends, ourselves!, who are
fed up with the mental sophistication of
Romper Room, and political savvy which
might (with luck) win votes in a homeroom
popularity contest. We are the 58 percent,
and we wonder what that means.

It means, first, that what is now happening
in the law school is going to happen in the
other schools as well. There, students are
circulating a petition which asks that the
School of Law be removed from the
jurisdiction of the Honor Committee. The
plan is gathering unexpected support and
promises to be the making of a larger issue.
Last week's election further means that if the
incoming officers fail to get the message, if
they continue to deal in the moribund terms
of a tradition, which by its very nature is
dragging down the object of its longstanding
existence — a spirit of honor — then that
spirit will cease to be a formal arrangement. It
will be a failure of what one likes to think is
educated skepticism, that quality which
translates tradition into reality, and which
separates fantasy from fact.

These are but a few facts. Should Mr.
Bagby and his committee fail to hear the
silent cry, or perhaps the laughter of election
night, then they will have consigned whatever
is left of their high offices to pure rubbish.