University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Kent State Deserves Open Justice

There is at present a
petition being circulated on
campus which supports the
10,380 Kent State students
who have requested that a
federal Grand Jury be
convened to investigate the
incidents of May 4, 1970.

I assume that everyone here
is in some way familiar with
the tragedy that day which left
four students dead and nine
others wounded.

To this date there have been
numerous investigations and
reports. The two most official
and widely accepted are "The
Report of the President's
Commission on Campus
Unrest," (Scranton Report)
which was chaired by William
S. Scranton the former
governor of Pennsylvania; and
the Report of the Ohio State
special grand Jury, which
indicted twenty-five students
in connection with the May
disorders.

The discrepancies or
inconsistencies between the
conclusions of these two
reports are, to say the least,
provocative.

For example: The state
grand jury found, in
investigating the circumstances
on the campus prior to the
shooting, that the orders to
the crowd to disperse, given by
the University Police, "caused
a violent reaction, and the
gathering quickly degenerated
into a riotous mob." Whereas
the Scranton Report stated
that "....the rally was peaceful
and there was no impending
violence. Only when the Guard
attempted to disperse the rally
did some student react
violently."

In reflecting student
attitude before the shooting
the special grand jury stated
that "the verbal abuse directed
at the guardsmen, by the
students during the period in
question, represented a level of
obscenity and vulgarity which
we have never before
witnessed....." But the
Scranton Report quoted a
Guard platoon leader as saying
"At the time of the firing the
crowd was acting like the
whole thing was a
circus.....They were having fun
with the guard. The circus was
in town."

Most dramatic, though, of
the discrepancies (or
misinterpretations by one
report or the other) was their
evaluation of the Guards
fateful action. The state grand
jury asserted that the
guardsmen "fired their
weapons in honest and sincere
belief and under circumstances
which would have logically
caused them to believe that
they would suffer serious
bodily injury had they not
done so." The Scranton Report
is a bit more critical of the
Guard action stating that "the
indiscriminate firing of rifles
into a crowd of students and
the deaths that followed were
unnecessary, unwarranted and
inexplicable."

Peter Davies (author of a
227 page report on the
conduct of the National Guard
at Kent State) in a letter to
Playboy magazine cited a
guardsman as writing "As a
guardsman who was present at
Kent State, I cannot wholly
dismiss the possibilities of a
deadly collusion. Just as I
know many fellow Guardsmen
who were appalled by the
murders, I know others who
welcomed the deadly
confrontation."

At this point one must
surely ask why there are such
dramatic differences in reports
of the same incident? (The
answer that men tend to
distort facts simply through
perception of their validity and
meaning, or through personal
perspective on their relevance,
is not sufficient.) My personal
convictions are unimportant
and of little intelligent value
here. Your personal opinion on
this incident should be less
important than your desire to
see justice pursued to its end.
Whether you feel the
guardsmen were right or wrong,
provoked or unprovoked,
guilty or innocent, should not,
to a meaningful degree,
influence your decision to sign
the Kent State Petition. A
Federal Grand Jury can only
bring to light more of the
truth, of the May 4 incident,
that has remained either
ignored, distorted, or
unknown. In essence it will,
hopefully, put and end to the
confusion about exactly where
the guilt lies and why its
identification has seemed so
elusively out of reach.

Justice is not best served by
sweeping an unsolved tragedy
out of the public eye and into
history (especially in light of
the controversial conclusions
reached by these reliable and
reputable sources). Help the
students at Kent State in their
attempt to seek and identify
the truth, and with it justice.
Sign one of the petitions
available at Newcomb Hall or
in front of Cabell Hall.

Four, No More

In light of your recent
editorial, I feel compelled to
write and offer objections to
the concept of a single six-year
presidency. In my opinion six
years is much too long for one
person to occupy an office
with that much power without
being responsible to an
electorate. There would exist a
grave danger of unchecked
irresponsibility in such a term.

For example, six years is
almost as long as America's
more active involvement in the
Vietnamese civil war. If
ex-president Johnson had been
elected for six years, we would
have had to wait until 1970 to
censure his policies. Likewise,
If President Nixon had been
elected for a six year term, we
might still be waiting for
decisive action on the
economy.

On the other hand, the
desire to be re-elected does
have its benefits. Although we
are subjected to dull
Presidential public relations, an
up-coming election does force
the President, and other
presidential contenders, to take
into account public opinion
and desires. A President serving
a single term might be tempted
to go his or her own way since
he or she could not be held to
account, officially anyway.
Further, I doubt if such a term
would diminish a President's
political influence. She or he
would be interested in securing
the nomination and office for
the chosen successor.

We cannot allow the
executive branch to go
unchecked for six years. Such a
term represents a potential
danger to our civil liberties and
national interests and thus
must be resisted.