University of Virginia Library

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.