University of Virginia Library

Irony

The following is a letter written to the editor of
The Washington Post by Robert J. Morgan, Professor
of Government at the University. It was printed in
last Sunday's issue of the Post.

It is ironic that recent orderly demonstrations
by students at the University of
Virginia should provoke angry demands for
legislative reprisals or stern administrative
curbs on such activities. This ugly reaction is
ironic, first of all, because of the veneration
still heaped upon the University's founder
who swore his undying opposition to "every
form of tyranny over the mind of man." It is
useful to recall that he did not defend
freedom of expression on behalf of trivial
causes. On March 4, 1801, in his first
inaugural address with the political persecutions
practiced under the Alien and
Sedition Laws of 1798 fresh in his mind, he
said: "If there be among us those who would
dissolve this Union or alter its republican form,
let them stand undisturbed as monuments to
the freedom with which error of opinion may
be tolerated when reason is left free to
combat it." Of course the students of the
University have not proposed to engage in any
such subversive activity, unless one so views
the achievement of racial equality and social
justice in accordance with the Constitution
and laws of the land.

There is a further irony in the demands of
those who want rustic tranquility restored at
Charlottesville so that the purple shadows
may fall once again undisturbed on The Lawn.
If the recent gatherings at the Rotunda had
been pep rallies to implore the football team
to commit violence on some ancient rival, if
there had been a roaring bonfire, a torchlight
parade and some snake-dancing incantations
to glorious victory on the playing field and
some unintelligible noises from the trumpet
and drum of TILKA and Eli Banana, who so
loves law and order that he would have called
the cops?

What are we to make of a society which
encourages the young to indulge in silly
mock-war rituals but condemns them when
they stage peaceful gatherings to hear and
express opinions about issues of the greatest
importance to our future well-being? If the
members of our society cannot distinguish the
trivial from the significant, the peaceful from
the violent, are we really fitted to enjoy the
freedom which has been our heritage?