University of Virginia Library

'Poppycock'

I write in reply to Mr. Papoun who filled
your columns with pure "poppycock"
concerning the recent appearance of
Congressman Allard Lowenstein. It is
beyond my comprehension that any third
year law student at the University of
Virginia, living in the twentieth century
could take such an aristocratic and
condescending attitude towards Mr.
Lowenstein, his ideas and the "juveniles"
(e.g. the overflow crowd in Wilson Hall)
who came to hear him and left with a
certain awareness and conviction that "the
crisis in democracy" can and might be
overcome.

To give a comprehensive and accurate
reply to Mr. Papoun's antagonistic remarks
would a) be giving it undue credit and b)
would involve myself in a search similar to a
hunt for grains of sand at Virginia Beach.
Rather, I would believe it more worthwhile
turning my comments towards Mr. Lowenstein.

Mr. Lowenstein is an anomaly in
American politics. He is one of those rare
animals who says what he believes and says
it well. No discerning individual who heard
him speak for two hours in the Law School
Lounge (after his formal remarks were over)
could in his right mind label this man a
"radical demagogue." He is, rather, a man
sensitive to the problems of the times, be
they on college campuses or the ghettos of
our cities. Mr. Lowenstein represents a new
breed of politicians who emerged out of the
holocaust of 1968. To equate students at
the University with "infants, cretins, and
others who cannot exercise consistently
mature judgments" is to miss entirely the
meaning of this past year's events.