University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Your recent article soliciting an
increase of letters to The Cavalier
Daily was an understandable
one. Nevertheless, you seem to
have misplaced the blame for the
dearth of letters. Usually, letters
to the editor reflect not the apathy
or activism of the reading public
but, rather the controversiality and
value of the editorials written.

Take my case for example. I
am not now writing because of
my sense of social commitment or
lack of it but, rather to clarify
an undocumented interjection you
made in your editorial "Illegitimacy:
Who Pays?", an interjection
the import of which transcended
the import of the stand
taken by the editorial itself. You
stated that "after the failure of
liberals' poverty program was dramatically
shown in the summer's
rioting, it is obvious welfare
practices need a thorough review."
I would appreciate your clarifying
why the poverty program belongs
to the "liberals," and in fact,
who the "liberals" are? Secondly
I would appreciate your demonstrating
that the major goal of the
poverty program was to prevent the
summer's rioting and that since the
goal has not been fulfilled, the
program is a "failure."

Sincerely,
Neil Matlins
4th year College

By "liberals," we meant those
members of the Johnson administration
who organized the
poverty program and now administer
it. The poverty program presumably
was directed at narrowing
the distressing gap in the United
States between the many who have
so much and the few who have
so little. It raised the hopes of
this latter group, but it barely
scratched the surface of their
troubles, and there you have one
of the major reasons for the ghetto
rioting. The idea that the poverty
program—and the whole liberal approach
to poverty—was a failure
comes from the distinguished liberal
Daniel P. Moynthan, a Harvard
and M.I.T. urbanologist and
former assistant secretary of labor.
—Ed.

Misdirected Morality

I found your editorial "Illegitimacy:
Who Pays" to be misdirected.
First, I doubt that many
children are actually being "supported
by welfare payments." It's
generally agreed that the majority
of illegitimate children never appear
on welfare roles; even of
those children who are legally entitled
to such payments, experts
place the percentage of those
actually receiving anything to be
less than half the total number.
The lucky ones who do get payments,
received, as of early 1966
a tremendous $8.84 per week.
Hence I agree with you that cutting
off aid to mothers after their second
child out of wedlock would fail
to reduce the number of such
children being born, nor would it
alter very much the financial situation
to the child.

Second, what bothers me most
about your article are the insinuations
that having children out of
wedlock is "immoral". While,
to bring children into this world
whom one cannot hope to adequately
care for is a questionable
practice, it is not a moral issue.
Most of the children in question
are conceived with the same
intensity of love and emotion as
the legitimate ones. They are mostly
loved, wanted, and appreciated.
I believe that the majority of these
children are conceived on
where a permanent
liaison between the mother and
father is economically and socially
unsound—and the parents are
cognizant of this fact. In this
situation it is enough for one
human being to need another and
to be able to mean something,
if only for a short time, to the
other individualist. To ask for more
than this is impossible. To expect
more than this smacks of middle
class morality—something no one
can have much of with $8.84 a
week.

Second Accident

Last Wednesday evening another
University student was struck by
a car while crossing Emmett Street.
The incident is but one of many
such cases. As an academic advisor
to first-year students the accident
is of great interest to me,
since for the second time in less
than a year a student in my
dormitory association has been hit
by a car in that same pedestrian
crossing.

It is ironical that the night the
student was hit the Governor of
Virginia conferred upon the city
of Charlottesville a pedestrian
safety citation—no fatalities in one
year. No fatalities, only two University
students with broken legs!
The city and the University are
lucky that there have been no
fatalities, since most of the 1300
first-year men cross that street at
least once every day. The number
of near-accidents I personally have
witnessed there is frightening.

While I realize that the construction
of a pedestrian bridge
is being considered, I fail to see
why another set of caution lights
cannot be installed immediately.
Since the bypass is now open for
north-south thru traffic, there
seems to be no reason why a
push-button stop light cannot be
installed.

Another improvement might be
made, and that is regular police
patrolling of the Emmett Street
area. Neither the University nor
the city does this. In the three
years I have been in graduate
school here, I have yet to see a
policeman issue a speeding ticket.
The University alone has enough
policemen to patrol a small city,
but all they ever do is give $1.00
parking tickets.

Students Unite!

In view of the fact that the
illegality of marijuana is coming
under question in many parts of the
country (Time, Sept. 29, p.77),
I think that a re-evaluation by the
administration on this question is
long overdue. I suppose it is surprisingly
naive (sic) of me to expect
that the University of Virginia
should be anything but a carbon-copy
of our highly hypocritical
society, but it seems that some
decision (instead of the present
indifferent of our
society) needs to be made by the
University on this question. If
Dean Runk and the rest of his
flunkies at the top want the University
to regain any of its previous
reputation as a center of
academic atmosphere, I suggest
that they realize that exactly what
proud difference from the die-cast
university.

The administration is not totally
at fault in this situation. To a
large extent, it is the failure of
the student body to exert its influence.
The general apathy extant
at the university over issues which
govern their life while in
Charlottesville allows the administration
to grasp more than warranted
power. I think centennial
of the publication of the Communist
Manifesto is an over-ripe
occasion for the plea: Students
Unite!