LVI. The World War—Pacifism Suppressed
At this critical hour, when the institution was bending
every pound of energy to assist in the prosecution of the
War, and when so many of its sons were performing
their full duty with alacrity in every department of the
service, there occurred an incident which caused an indignant
shock to the minds of the University authorities
and the alumni in general. Professor Whipple, of
the School of Journalism, was invited in November,
1917, to deliver an address before the Current Event
Club of the Sweet Briar Female College. He chose
as his topic, The Meaning of Pacifism; and before a
word of it was spoken, he sent a summary of its contents
to numerous newspapers throughout Virginia, with the
request that it should be published at least in part.
The substance of the address was printed in several
of the Virginia papers; and as soon as President Alderman
read it as thus published, he issued a formal statement.
"Officially and personally," he declared, "I repudiate
the reported utterances of Professor Whipple
as unpatriotic and calculated to give aid and comfort to
the enemies of the Republic in a grave moment of national
peril." All the members of the Faculty who
were then in residence joined in a protest, which was
drafted only two days after the address was delivered.
"We consider such sentiments," they said, "disloyal to
our national policy and deserving condemnation by all
patriotic citizens." "The offense," they added, "was
aggravated by the circumstance that copies were supplied
to the public press of Virginia, with the intention
of disseminating these disloyal opinions among the people,
—opinions the more readily made current when uttered
by a professor of the State University." "Professor
Whipple," they continued, "had distorted and abused
academic freedom"; and in conclusion, they unanimously
pronounced his views "to be discreditable to a teacher of
an institution which had consistently sought, since the
inception of the war, to instil into her sons,—graduate
and undergraduate,—the spirit of loyalty to the Government,
and the determination to present an undivided
front to the enemy."
In anticipation of the meeting of the Board of Visitors,
President Alderman, in order to express the feeling
of himself, the Faculty, and the alumni, drew up a
statement for their consideration, in which he vigorously
characterized Professor Whipple's utterance, "as a document
of disloyalty; a counsel of national dishonor; a
frank incitement to inactivity in the presence of aggression;
a condemnation of God in national leadership; a
plan for the impairment of the Nation's spirit and courage
in the face of grave national peril; a disparagement
of those who were willing to die to win a peace based
on freedom rather than to accept, without struggle, a
peace based on servitude."
The Board of Visitors having convened, and having
heard and weighed Professor Whipple's defense of his
conduct, which he delivered in person, adopted President
Alderman's recommendation that his appointment
as adjunct instructor of journalism should be rescinded;
and that his chair should be pronounced vacant. Their
action was accompanied by words which demonstrated
their abhorrence of the pacifist sentiments which had
been expressed in that teacher's ill-timed speech. The
principal of the Sweet Briar College very emphatically
denied that she had been in sympathy with such unpatriotic
views. "I gave myself no concern," she wrote
the President of the University, on November 22,
"about any effect that the address might have outside,
because we are secure at Sweet Briar from unpleasant
publicity, as the happenings here are given to the papers
always through us. The papers this morning were a disagreeable
surprise, and I felt that the Professor took advantage
of the invitation sent entirely through the
students,—indeed, the nature of his theme was not
known to the Faculty."
