University of Virginia Library

War Protesters Urged
To Write President

— ed.

Wednesday's mourning demonstration,
"Moratorium," emphasizes
an essential aspect of the personality
of our times; we live in an age
when we must question our politics.
We have discovered new
sensibilities, new emotions, new
involvements, and they have expanded
into social movements protesting
race relations, poverty, and
war. We have sat, picketed,
marched, hoped, and prayed for
peace between all breeds of men
and this we have clearly conducted
with the underlying belief that the
pen will become mightier than the
sword. America is engaged in a war
in Vietnam, a war in which she did
not intend to become so massively
involved; and it is this war which
we question most in our age of
inquiry.

Political and social protest in the
United States is for the most part
channeled along the limits of our
Constitutional rights as citizens.
More often we have gathered our
bodies in protest than our beliefs. A
spokesman for a crowd often
clouds your own beliefs and leaves
you more dismayed than convinced
by your involvements. Americans
have not availed themselves of one
of their most effective channels for
protest, the Post Office. If the
majority of the public conveyed
their true convictions concerning
the Vietnam war at one time by
writing the President one letter a
day for a week, the commonwealth
of our concern for peace will be
substantially communicated without
the fear that the good will of
our personal opinions will be
overlooked or lost in the words of a
spokesman for the crowd or of our
elected representatives.

The timetable for your protest is
to mail your letters daily beginning
November 9 and continuing
through November 15 to Richard
M. Nixon, President of the United
States, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, D.C. 20006.

On November 12 the bulk of
your opinions will reach and pass
through the doors of the White
House. The letter-in can be an
impetus to the march perhaps be
even more effective. The White
House staff will open each of your
letters at the White House on
Wednesday, the first day of your
protest.

Use the following procedure in
mailing your letters: 1) Type the
address. Use the ZIP Code. Business
and institutional envelopes may be
used. 2) Use first class postage...
Special Delivery and even better,
registered mail (it must be signed
for) will insure faster delivery.

President Nixon may never read
your letter but he will be intimately
reminded of your convictions for
peace. We have a message to give to
President Nixon. Let us be united
in a common effort to express our
beliefs as Americans.