University of Virginia Library

Changing Hands

Every year at this time the fourth-year
editors of this newspaper take aside their
newly-elected successors, give them a few
words of advice, explaining perhaps how the
unique office filing system works, or how to
deal with a temperamental administrator, wish
us good luck, and leave. Suddenly we are left
with no one to lean on, and gradually the
responsibility of the job sinks in as panic
builds. Some awful thoughts pass through our
minds, until we turn our thoughts to the
unique possibilities of the future.

For strength we turn to these mysterious
files for their hidden secrets and take up the
editorials of those who have preceded us.
From these two sources we learn of past
failures and successes, reading some excellent
writing, and some crusades we would like to
forget.

Looking ahead a year, we can only surmise
what we might add to this cavalcade of
growth and change. For the moment, though,
we would like to state our views on what we
think the role of this newspaper in the
University community ought to be.

To explain our hopes for The Cavalier
Daily, we must first explain our staff.
Journalism is an insane profession. Those who
practice it could usually be doing quite well in
many other professions like their more
respectable friends. Instead, somewhere along
the way they became separated from their
more normal fellows. One fine fellow who
used to work at the University Printing Office
told us that it was the printer's ink in their
veins that made journalists different from the
rest of mankind.

It is no different at the University. A small
group of students who could be getting good
grades, or at least getting polluted with beer at
one of the neighboring girls' schools, are
foolish enough to spend long — and often
frustrating — hours ferreting out news,
rewriting stories, selling ads, trying to make
headlines fit, and perhaps, if the machines
don't break down, getting out of the office by
11 p.m.

What motivates these people varies. Occasionally
it is the simple delight of seeing
one's name in print. Some people in the
community have suggested that we are
masochists; one member of the University's
growing population of militant feminists
suggested recently, and somewhat unkindly
we think, that we were misogynists. But we
are convinced that what brings first-year
students, and others, up to the fifth floor of
Newcomb Hall is their dissatisfaction with
things as they are, and a resulting desire to
change them, by informing the public, for the
better.

Out of the group that joined the staff
many years ago as first-year students only a
few remain. It is these survivors who are
assuming the editorship today. The yearly
turnover in staff makes for a lack of
consistency on the one hand, but on the other
there is some compensation in their vigor.

In a time of so much change and
questioning by students, among others, both
locally and nationally, we must write
intelligently and sensibly on the myriad of
issues that confront us. Because we cannot
possibly hope to be an expert on the majority
of matters that surround us, ranging from the
admission of women to the University to the
awesome social problems that our nation must
cope with, we invite and encourage anyone
who has knowledge of a special problem or a
strong opinion on any issue that differs from
our own to respond, for the benefit of our
readers. While most of these responses will
take the form of letters, we hope there are
more than a few members of the University
community who will have enough interest to
join our staff. Next year there will be 450
first-year women entering the college. We
sincerely hope that a few of them will get
printer's ink in their veins.

For those who wonder whether we will be
"conservative" or "liberal," we can find no
better words to express our position than
those used at this time three years ago by
Charles Calhoun in his first editorial: "We
would pinpoint our views only by saying that
we find extremists of both the Left and the
Right equally amusing. Rather than have The
Cavalier Daily represent any one group
whether it be the elusive Establishment or
some exotic radical fringe — we prefer to see
the paper carry on a dialogue among all points
of student and faculty and administrative
view."

To that we would like to add that although
we will strive to let faculty and administrators
get their say on our pages, it is to the students
of the University that we are ultimately
responsible, through our Board of Governors,
made up of the vice-presidents of each school.
It is the students who pay for the paper,
through the Student Activities Fee, not the
faculty or administration.

This newspaper has been fortunate in
enjoying a long tradition of editorial freedom.
We think this situation totally appropriate at
Mr. Jefferson's University.

During our tenure in this office, we will
undoubtedly make mistakes. But we also have
a desire to learn, and through this education
achieve responsibility.

We would be remiss in our first editorial if
we did not cite the contributions of our
immediate successors. Charles A. Hite, as
editor-in-chief, brought this newspaper a long
way in one year through his seemingly
limitless patience and some firm beliefs. We
disagreed on occasion with Robert Cullen,
who contributed chiefly to this column as
editor, although we cannot help but admire
his vision and ability as a writer. Roy Bishop
had the impossible task of making a little
money go a long way and he left us in better
financial shape than when he assumed the
post of business manager.

There are many others, of course, who
helped make this past year an exciting one on
the fifth floor of Newcomb Hall. They and
many who sat in this ivory tower before them
have established a certain excellence in
journalism that we, on our first day in office,
hope to achieve, now given the chance.