University of Virginia Library

To Stand And Say No

Writing about the war in Vietnam is a
peculiarly futile exercise, Everything that
contemporary observers could say about it has
been said already. The war is demonstrably
outrageous on a moral basis and exceedingly
stupid on a diplomatic and military level. You
cannot win a war for the minds of men be
destroying their homes and killing their
women and children. Moreover, we as a nation
have no right to attempt it. Yet all of the
words have had no effect on the war. It grinds
on, propelled by an insane logic derived from
misconception piled upon misconception. It
remains only for history to exercise the final,
telling judgment, to chastise us for our
culpability and stupidity.

That is what the Vietnam moratorium is all
about. President Nixon has already stated that
protests against his policies will have no effect
on him. It now appears that the war will not
end until the generals are ready to end it or
until Mr. Nixon must face the voters again. So
there is a very good possibility that anything
the moratorium accomplishes will have no
effect on the duration of the war. But that is
not the only goal, the only thing the
moratorium can accomplish.

What we can do on October 15 may have a
greater long-run impact than merely shortening
the duration of the war. What we can do is
to demonstrate to those who come after us
that when the President and his military
advisors asked the people of the United States
to go along with the atrocity they sought to
perpetrate, that there were Americans, lots of
Americans, who stood up and said no.

It is all very well for us to sit here in our
academic cloister and to maintain that a
university's role is to remain above the
pettiness of partisan politics. But on October
15 there will be countless thousands of
Americans who will forego their normal
activities to register their discontent and
outrage at American policy in Vietnam.

And those who look back upon October
15 will look especially at the universities, for
it is from the universities that the most critical
thinking, the least willingness to go along with
societal irrationality, is rightfully expected. If
the University stands silent when its voice and
influence are needed in protest the University
will have failed to meet the challenge that
confronts it. If instructors insist on holding
classes and students don't care enough to
refrain from going to them they will have
failed to meet the challenge that confronts
them as individuals in a society travelling
rapidly towards disaster. Whatever knowledge
that might be disseminated in that one day
will stand as nothing in the light of that
failure.

There are those here who think that the
war is right and the protest therefore wrong,
as well as those who think that the war is
wrong but so is the protest. They have a right
to their opinion. We would urge them,
however, to use October 15 to get out of their
classrooms and dormitories and attempt to
engage others in the community in discussion
and reappraisal. Surely the learning function
of the University would thus be better served
than by another routine day of classes and
lectures.

The YAF's threatened legal action to stop
the moratorium, as much as the Pentagon
might applaud it, is just so much bunk. The
only "contract" the YAF members have with
the University is for such classes and exercises
as the University wishes to schedule. The
President is empowered to cancel classes for
any reason he feels is legitimate.

We hope that Mr. Shannon, when he
finishes with the current Board of Visitors
meeting, will consider seriously the idea of
cancelling classes on October 15. His responsibility
to lead the academic community, we
feel, can allow him to do no less. At the very
least, classes ought to be made optional to
protect those students who in conscience
cannot attend classes that day from instructors
who might schedule tests in hopes of
sabotaging the moratorium and those who
support it.