University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor:

Draft Counseling Program Draws Leader's Reaction

On Monday evening, September
9, Dean Raymond C. Bice, referring
to "irresponsible groups" on
campus, "warned" students not to
be misled with false information on
the draft. Lest there be any
misunderstanding, we of the
Charlottesville Draft Counseling
Group would like Dean Bice to
publicly state, as he has privately,
that he was not referring to the
CDCG.

Through a careful training
program, intensive study of the
draft law, the draft system and
options to it, counselors with the
CDCG seek to help each man find
the best way to serve his nation and
himself. We have information on
many military, non-military and
extra-legal methods of dealing with
the draft. Our counseling center in
the Newcomb Hall Conference
Room (third floor next to the Main
Desk) is open Monday, Wednesday
and Thursday from noon to 2:00
p.m. and Tuesday 5:00-7:00 p.m.
For an appointment call 296-7208
from 9 to 5.

Anyone interested in becoming
a trained counselor and/or joining
the counseling group is invited to a
meeting Tuesday September 24 at
7:30 p.m. in the dining room of
Westminster Presbyterian Church.

SDS Meeting

I feel a bit deceived about a
meeting I attended part of this past
Monday night in Newcomb Hall.
Advertised in The Cavalier Daily as
a meeting of the "Charlottesville
Draft Opposition" and inviting "all
interested persons, including
Students for a Democratic
Society," it turned out to be a
formative and organizational
meeting for a local chapter of the
SDS. This was very disturbing to
me and I imagine to other students
who attended out of a belief in
peace, a desire to end the war, and
a feeling that the present draft
situation is unjust. We were met by
members of an organization which,
if it does not denote, at least
connotes militarism and violent
activism. Added to this "surprise"
was the equally surprising,
confusing, and dismaying stand
taken by Mr. Walker Chandler of
anarchist fame. Mr. Chandler, in an
apparently contradictory position,
explained on the one hand why he
would not join the SDS, ("for
political reasons"), and on the
other hand called those of us who
would not vote to become members
of a national chapter of the SDS
psychologically crippled,"
"shirkers", and "misfits."

The "Executive Committee"
members made it clear that the SDS
is being investigated by a
Congressional Committee as well as
the F.B.I. and Mr. Chandler broke
in once in answer to a question
about the implications of
membership in such an organization
by saying, "Become a member and
then try to get a government job."

Aside from my dismay at
finding no such meeting as
advertised in The Cavalier Daily, I
was very unhappy about Mr.
Chandler's paradoxical stand and
intimidating tactics, and even more
disturbed by the attitude of the
SDS members and would-be
members in attendance. The
University, Charlottesville, and the
South may need many things and
may have a "long way to go," but
we do not need an organization like
the SDS and we do not have to go
in the direction of Berkeley or
Columbia.

Rapier Cover

For the general information of
those concerned students who have
been coming over to the library to
ask me the significance of the cover
illustration of this month's Rapier
magazine (perhaps they simply
haven't wished to disturb the staff
of Rapier) I have only been able to
come up with the following: I have
before me a copy of UVM for April
1962 (Vol. CXXIV No. 4) and over
the column feature "From the
Observatory" appears a sketch
remarkably similar to the cover of
this month's Rapier, the exception
being the lack of a beard on "the
little feller in front." I conclude
Rapier is simply trying to update
the image of the University by
acknowledging the appearance of
such persons on the Grounds, and I
will leave it up to the individual
students to judge the significance of
the lack of faces on the gents with
the fraternity mugs. Perhaps I
should have called on the staff of
Rapier rather than to make my own
deductions, but I am sure that if I
have missed the point, a letter from
a member of the staff will be
forthcoming.

Rosen Reply

May I address, through the
Cavalier Daily, those among the
University's student body who
think themselves "the simple
defenders of the spirit"; those who
would spill the "blood of patriots
and tyrants" in order to "refresh
the tree of liberty" in
Charlottesville; those who, while
hesitating to sound melodramatic,
nonetheless consider the policies of
the University's Administration
invalid. America is the most
traditionless nation the world has
known. Our country's historically
unparalleled achievements are for the
largest part due to the necessity —
arising from our lack of traditional
solutions — of choosing
appropriate paths through
application of observation and logic
in a free-wheeling style. The current
academic year promises to be a
rough, callous, violent one at many
American colleges and universities.
Before you, the rebellious and
militant students, sprinkle Virginia
with the pixie dust of anarchy, be
sure you have carried the
examination of what you propose
to its full logical fruition.

Progress, Gentlemen, is a
delicate beastie. It is much like a
love affair. Once the first advances
are made, they must be cherished
and held out proudly for all to see.
To leave them too soon in a rush to
bigger and better things, can only
result in a degradation of the thrust
that has been gained. Then the
affair will be over, leaving you with
at best a lost, rueful feeling, and at
worst a bitter irrationality. The
most important lesson is usually
not the first one learned: you must
consider the damage to be wrought
both if you succeed, and in case
you fail.

Also as in a love affair, whoever
moves to upset the balance is
morally responsible for all the
consequences which may obtain.
Clearly then, you must not only
ascertain that you believe in what
you are about, but as well that,
under the specific circumstances,
you are in the right. For instance,
any attempt to establish a new
democracy should have a majority
agreement among those to be
governed. Do the majority of
Virginia students support radical
politics? It is your responsibility to
find that out before you act, lest
you put yourselves in the position
of seriously wronging others.

You might say, "But someone
has to get the ball rolling." I can
but agree. Individual protest within
the rules is good and necessary,
provided it does not interfere with
those who like things the way they
are. That lest qualification is
important, for not only does it
protect the conservative and the
apathetic, but it also guards your
right to dissent.

The University's system has
evolved slowly. Time is an essential
ingredient, because countervailing
power — the key to democracy
— seems to have a considerable
inertia of rest. No program of social
updating, however carefully
conceived, can foresee the systemic
errors which inevitably will
develop. It may be — I believe this
to be the case — just as well that
our University is not overly
democratic. There are cases where
democracy is not the right
approach, especially when the
would-be leaders must operate from
within an experience vacuum. Mr.
Rosen's Prospectus For The
University included a passing
sarcastic remark concerning the
lack of democracy in Saudi Arabia.
That remark is an excellent
example of the kind of error of
judgement against which I would
caution you. Arabia, with its
absolute monarchy, is unique in the
Arab world for its stability. The
country is absorbing technology
and adapting to the modern world
at a rate estimated by an American
economist with the Arabian
American Oil Company to be the
highest in the world, when
sociological as well as economic
factors are considered. Most
important, the rate of growth
appears to be just that which the
people can absorb without
perpetual indigestion. Monarchy is
precisely what Arabia needs.

Certainly, there are many
improvements to be made at
Virginia; but we ought to consider
our current situation as a basis from
which to begin, not as a systematic
squashing of "the real us."
Gentlemen, I say we must not
permit the destruction of that
which has already been
accomplished here. Have rioters at
any one school produced anything
to compare with what they ruined
in their ill designed rites of nativity?
If progress comes slowly, never
mind. It is coming, there will be no
halting it. Petitions, reasoning, and
cool-headed debate, not
inflammatory writings or violence,
will carry the year for liberalism.
Patience and confidence are what
we students need, not this
unwieldy, unstable, fragmentary
and illegal "power."

Those who have paid to attend
the University as it is have a right to
undisrupted classes. Infractions of
that particular privilege should be
met with a Judiciary Council
recommendation for dismissal.

Jefferson Lives

Behold! Mr. Jefferson lives. As
"A Prospectus for the University"
would have us believe, he has risen
again and lurks in our midst as one
Robert Rosen. To the point of
absurdity, Mr. Jefferson incarnate is
preoccupied with change as an end
in itself. Where the old Thomas
Jefferson sought change from the
bonds of an oppressive government
for the liberty of his people, the
new one seeks to disrupt the
functioning of an institution for, at
best, extracurricular activity. What
has happened to the sage Mr.
Jefferson?

The latest of Mr. Rosen's
"causes", is that we the people
suffer from a long train of abuses
and usurpations under a tyrannical
and indifferent Board of Visitors
(which incidentally was established
by the revolutionary, Mr.
Jefferson). Such intolerable abuses
as the restriction of girls in the
dorms, indeed, demands a
Columbia-style rebellion. Such
trivia demeans the name of Thomas
Jefferson.

The fallacy of his contrived
finger pointing lies in Mr. Rosen's
assumption that students acquire
superior rights, above those of U.S.
citizens, to direct institutions to
which they subscribe. Prudent
administrators of an institution
should recognize and appreciate
changes sought be the subscribers.
However, for consistency and
proficiency the system of
responsible trustees directing
institutions must be preserved.

If the policies of an institution
become unbearable to the student,
his recourse becomes abstention or
withdrawal and support of those
institutions which are more to his
liking. As a student at Virginia for
the past five year, I have been quite
satisfied with the actions on the
part of the Board of Visitors, and I
support this institution.

One must wonder, with the
many institutions Mr. Rosen spoke
of as being "progressive" and in the
"mainstream of American
University life", why he chose an
institution he considers so
backward, undemocratic and
conservative. Perhaps he is a
masochist among other things.